People, Planet, Profits & Projects

As project managers, we are all about baselining.  That is – determining a reference point from which we make rational judgments.  We baseline scope.  We baseline schedule.  We baseline the budget.  We do this so that we can make informed decisions about the actuals – comparing actual to planned and looking for variance.  It's from this information that we make decisions - important project decisions.

In projects, this is done in the relatively short term.  Even though projects can be decades long, we must remember that in the scheme of things, a 50-year project is – geologically speaking – a flash in the pan, if that.  And that’s where the forams come in.

Forams?  That's not a typo - we didn't mean forum.  Although, there may be a forum for forams.

So - what’s a foram?  They are simple marsh-dwelling creatures – technically called foraminifera, which are choosy about how much time they spend underwater, and so they turn out to be surprisingly precise indicators of ancient sea levels.  Here's a picture of some...

In this article from today’s Boston Globe, you’d find the story of Professor Andrew Kemp of Tufts University, who is studying the ancient climate, “using lessons written in the sediment to discern historical patterns that could help refine models of climate change and sea levels. Generally, local sea level rise is calculated by taking the overall changes predicted by climate models and then factoring in the local conditions. But those are complex and aren’t all understood — a knowledge gap that research like Kemp’s could help fill.”

In other words, they are baselining.

The studies being conducted by Kemp have taken him from North Carolina to Long Island Sound, and now he would like to extend that work to Massachusetts, to build a fine-grained portrait of how sea levels have changed over the last several thousand years in order to make more informed predictions.

We found this story to be interesting in the dual connection to project management: first, the baseline element and second, the fact that it is indeed a project – one that our book Green Project Management would call a “Green By Definition” project.

And there was another, perhaps even stronger connection.

We’ve always treasured one particular aspect of project management – the fact that we are silo-busters.  Read this quote from the article:

‘The work shows the importance in science of borrowing tools and insights from other fields. While biologists might be interested in forams and the ecosystems in which they live for their own right, geologists can use the different species of forams they find and their distribution in the sediment to extrapolate the conditions of the ancient marsh.”

Even within the field of science – there are clearly silos.  And it’s this project team that is breaking down the walls between those silos to gain a positive outcome.  That’s what projects are all about.

And you can use that line… as a baseline.

Many of our PM colleagues don't buy the whole climate change "thing".

And that's actually fine with us.

We're not selling a philosophy, nor are we pushing any agenda, political or otherwise.  We have (for many years now) simply been asserting that there is a connection between project management and sustainability.  In our past book (Cleland Award-winning "Green Project Management") we made that connection between projects, project managers, and sustainability.  In our upcoming book, "Sustainability in Projects, Programs, and Portfolios", as you can probably guess, we've advanced that assertion to the program and portfolio level - partially because we know that business leaders - VPs and Directors - ARE buying sustainabiilty as a business imperative and are integrating sustainability into their business plans, and partially because we've found a much more receptive audience for sustainability and long-term thinking in project management at the program and portfolio levels.

This is illustrated in the latest issue of PM Network, which features a front page showing the Ivanpah solar installation in California and is titled, "The Energy Evolution" issue, there is a quote which illustrates this.

"Because of the 20- to 50-year lifespan of typical energy capital projects, investment decisions and resulting assets from these projects will impact the organization for decades to come", says Galen Townson, PMP, PMO lead at Synergy, an energy provider based in Perth, Australia.  "Not knowing what's going to happen in longer horizons creates a lot of risk in that investment, and the uncertainty is greater and it demands even more of a portfolio management approach". 

This quote shows us that Synergy - by necessity, is buying long-term thinking in their projects.

And that takes us to the numbers.

The numbers to which we send you is the "metrics" section of PM Network this month, which features some astounding figures.  For example:

• US$700 billion: Annual additional spending on clean energy infrastructure, low-carbon transport, energy efficiency and forestry projects need to cap the rise of global temperatures
• US$271 billion: Annual cost of climate change in the United States by 2025, including hurricane damage, real-estate losses and increased energy and water costs
• US$73 billion: Annual cost to climate-proof East Asia's infrastructure per through 2050
• 85% increase in teh number of undernourished people in southern Africa by 2050 - due to climate change
• and on, and on... see page 16 of the October, 2014 issue of PM Network for the full graphic

So this is PMI (not Greenpeace, not the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, not Al Gore) simply reporting on the numbers - the facts - that are out there, whatever your beliefs are about the science.

We're depressed by some of the numbers (like the sea level rise numbers, comparing .62 feet between 190 and 2010 verus a projected 2 to 4.6 feet from 2000 to 2100, or the projected global tempurature increases of up to nearly 10 degrees F), but we are glad to see that at least the amount of investment that business and government is committing is present and public in a journal like PM Network.

So we hope that you are "buying' at least the concept that projects focused on sustainability are on the rise - and that you can also make the connection to the concept that projects (at all levels, and whether or not they are related to climate change) should be integrating sustainability, holistic, long-term thinking, if for no other reason than to tether them more firmly to the mission and vision statements of the enterprise.

The altruism is there but often silent.

The numbers - well, they're a little louder.

Are you buying?

As project managers we are often faced with tough descisions.

So it's a relief, isn't it, when you stop off at the market on the way home from a long day of progressive elaboration and rolling-wave planning, Monte-Carloing, Paretoing, and determining the Estimate at Completion, that the only decision you have to make is.... Paper or Plastic for your bag.

What a relief.  An easy, no-brainer.  Paper!  Right?  It's brown, it's re-used materials... right?  Right?  RIGHT?

Not necessarily.

We think there is actually quite a lessons-learned in the area of Procurement Management for your projects in the video we provide below.

The speaker,  Leyla Acaroglu is outstanding as she provides a flowing, logical description of how purchasing decisions should really be made.  She's speaking in general, but if you have your "PM antennae" on, and you're willling to think a little more holistically about your project - including the time after the moment you leave the project because it's turned over to your client - you'll find that this talk can help you in your PM decision making.

You're going to find definitions in this talk which will be helpful as well.

• extraction
• biodegradability
• Life Cycle Assessment (or Analyisis) - LCA

This is a highly-recommended talk.  You will be that much smarter after listening.

The theme this week is up.

Our 21-September-2014 post on EarthPM is called "Up, Up, and Away" .  Today also, hundreds of  thousands of people were filling UP New York City to draw attention to climate change.  And finally (and the reason for today's post at P@W) is something way, WAY up in the sky - the MAVEN spacecraft, which, as this post is being written, is supposed to supposed to fire its six main engines, slowing down enough so it can be captured by the gravity of the red planet and go into orbit.

You can (and should) read about the MAVEN project here and here.  You can even follow a live stream of the mission at that second link from NASA.  The bottom line (I know, I know, we said "up" and we're referring you to a bottom line...sorry) for MAVEN is that its misison is to understand the history of the climate on Mars.  Why?  Because the climate of Mars changed radically sometime in the last billion years and understanding that change will help us understand climate change here on Earth as well.

Besides the obvious project management connection inherent in any space mission, we also want to point out that in this particular case there is another key theme: pointing to facts.  When thee is a disagreement between project stakeholders, it's often the project manager that's called upon to referee.  This NASA mission is one that will help provide more science to the discussion about climate change, by providing impartial, factual data about what happened on an entirely different planet as a basis for comparison with what is happening now on our planet.

We applaud NASA for doing what we need to do as project managers - bringing clarity and new, impartial information to bear for a better project outcome.

We wish NASA - and MAVEN - the best of luck with their mission, and we hope that you as project managers embrace your responsibility to be that arbitrator of fairness and fact - and to do it when called upon but also when your 'expert judgment' says, "it's time to step UP".

When we stsarted out many years ago pointing to the intersection of green and project management, we didn't notice too much in the popular PM journals on the topic.  Sure, from time to time there would be a story about a wind-farm project, or a story that lightly touched on broader definitions of project success, but we rarely found coverage of sustainability as an 'integrated idea'.

And that still holds pretty true.

But we are beginning to see an uptick in a more holistic view of project success, more of a buy-in into project managers (or at least program and portfolio managers) as "benefits realizers", with the inherent patience and metrics to measure project success not only on delivery of a project product, but on the longer-term benefits of continued econommic success for that product, fewer ecological impacts from the steady state of that product, and the broader social impact of that product (in operation).

Case in point: this month's PMNetwork magazine, which, as you can see in the picture - and perhaps coincidentally - has a cover that features the color green.  But beyond the cover, deep inside the issue (without it being dubbed any sort of special 'sustainability' or 'green' issue) are many articles and features on renewable energy projects, on aligning sponsors more closely with project managers, even on the "long haul" 'sustainabile' careers of old crow project managers like your authors here at this blog.

It's a thread through the issue and it's increasingly a thread through issue after issue of PMNetwork, and we applaud the work of PMI to continue to weave that thread into the fabric of project managers.

Some other examples: the Finalists for the 2014 Project of the Year includes the Energy Systems Integration Facility being built by the US Department of Energy.  There's a feature on the creation of an artificial oyster reef in Matagorda Bay, Texas, to revive an ecosystem lost with the eventual erosion of the Half Moon Reef.  It's a project that involves collaboration between government and the Nature Conservancy.  The story on the emergence of Tanzania as a leading African economy features stories on the challenges it faces with energy.  Speaking of energy, Chile is also featured as a country with a promising set of renewable energy projects.  There's a sidebar describing renewables projects in that country.  And to top it off, there is a feature on REDD (not LEED, but REDD - Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and forest Degredation) projects for which the USAID and the World Bank has funded US$6.27 billion, and "that's a far cry from what the UN says is needed to combat climate change". 

All in all, it's reassuring to see the thread of sustainability - or at least a focus on sustainability-oriented projects - become more prolific.

It's now time for the next step: raise the level of coverage to include how projects - ANY kind of project - can have a connection to the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) objectives of the parent organization.  Show how a software project, a bridge, the launch of a new coffeemaker - ANY project - can benefit from long-term, holistic thinking.  

We're impressed with the change.  But we're still not satisfied. I suppose we could say that our passion for a true intersection of PM and Sustainability is...sustainable.