People, Planet, Profits & Projects

Some of you may be familiar with the phrase "All Your Base Are Belong To Us", which has become somewhat of an internet meme with its own Wikipedia entry and acronym: AYBABTU.  It's a result of a poor translation from Japanese in a popular game called ZeroWing.

The phrase became so popular it shows up (in one form or another) on church signs...

and T-shirts...

That's when you know you've made it as an expression!

But we bring this up not because of t-shirts or churches or even video games, but rather because of a short but intensely interesting and powerful post by Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Motors, who used this internet meme as a basis for the title of the post - to be cute and yet memorable with a very important message for innovators.  Musk said, in short:

Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.

This is long-term thinking in a company that was built on long-term thinking.  We simply invite you to read the post and let us know how you feel about what, in effect, is open-source development of electric vehicles.

How would this work in your industry?

Does this have implications for projects and project managers?  We think so.  A penny for your thoughts?  Maybe... a whole base for your thoughts?

Growing up in New England as we have, we know and love our New England accent.  To us, in fact, it's not an accent.  All of the rest of you have an accent, we speak, well, we speak  noahmahlly.

We always get a kick out of those movies in which actahs (actors) from out of our region try to "do" the New England accent.  They get it horribly wrong.  When they try to play, for example, President John F. Kennedy, to us they may as well be speaking in Tamil.  It's just not proppah (proper).

Well, now you have the chance to hear the accent in all of its glory because Boston native, UMass-Boston alum, and US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Director Gina McCarthy (pronounced "m'cahh-thy") yesterday addressed the nation on the proposed limits to power plants to reduce cahhbin (carbon) generation.

Below is the video.  You don't have to watch the whole thing but we want to draw your attention to 3:52, where she makes an errah (error).  At least, she misuses a project management term if compared to the way we are told we are supposed to use it by the Project Management Institute (PMI®).

At that point in the video - wait for it, wait for it, THERE - she says, "we'll turn the risks of climate into business opportunity".

We know as practicing PMs that risks can be positive or negative.  Positive risks are opportunities and negative risks are threats.  Therefoah (therefore) she should have said, "we'll turn the threats of climate ito business opporutnity". 

A small sticking point, perhaps but one which has been a calling card for us for 5 years.  In our book, Green Project Management, the very cover makes this point by showing a tree that yields paper money.  The concept of a triple - or really at least quadruple - bottom line is one we've blogged about as well for years, and indeed is the name of the blog you're readning now - People, Planet, Profits & Projects.  We assert that there is a benefit to long-term thinking that means it pays off to consider social and environmental concerns and not only financial considerations - and that this 'extra' effort in long-term thinking is not wasted, often coming back around to provide short-term financial gain.

In McCarthy's reference we can also see the short term opportunities in the form of new projects to reduce carbon from power plants and to move effort to renewable energy - all of which will require a crop of sustainability-aware project managers.

By staying tuned to this blog and an upcoming book (yes, we finally have a follow-up book to Green Project Management, more about that later) you can be part of that crop and you can help gain yourself some powah!

We DO NOT know if climate change is real.*

What we DO know, as an absolute, undisputed fact, is that climate change change is real.

Here's the executive summary, fellow project managers: whatever you believe or don't believe about climate change is actually trivial from a project management perspective, compared to the fact that businesses are initiating changes to their fundamental business plans and business cases based on what they perceive to be an issue important for their survival.

Projects - by definition - are about change.  Projects are initiated to incorporate changes, and they are selected by businesses based on their fit with the portfolio of programs and projects that help them stay true to their long-term, sustainable success.

Back slowly away from this blog post, and read this article.  Then return.

If you read the article - great.  That means you can skip this pull-quote because you've already got the point.  For those of you who didn't, please at least read this:

'...many businesses in Boston and beyond are taking matters into their own hands, preparing for a warmer world in which severe weather, rising sea levels, and increased flooding threaten property, operations, and earnings.

Developers have moved electrical units from the basements to rooftops of buildings in the Seaport District along Boston Harbor. Utilities in New England have elevated substations several feet above the ground and replaced wooden electrical poles with steel ones that can withstand powerful winds.

Insurance companies, in response to clients, are testing products designed to protect against varied effects of climate change, and providing more coverage against natural disasters. The Hartford insurance company now offers small businesses policies against losses due to widespread power outages, a growing concern as major storms occur more frequently.

“We think the time for debating [climate change] is over,” said Ed White, vice president of customer strategy and environmental for National Grid, a British company with its US headquarters in Waltham. “We see it occurring. We’ve lived through the flooding, we’ve seen the damage that it had to our communities and our equipment.”'

So, in other words, as we said in a previous blog post, "Get Your Head Outta The Sand", your sponsors are "on board" with climate change.  This means:

• projects are already being launched by businesses in response to challenges posed by perceived threats (and in some cases opportunities) caused by climate change
• enterprises are more commonly connecting their fundamental mission statements and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) with their portfolios
• a knowledge of the issues, the language, the nature of climate change is an advantage whatever your beliefs
• jobs - even entire career paths - are bending to the reality of organizations responding to climate change.

What kinds of organizations are reacting to climate change?  Is it just biofuel companies, fair-trade clothing co-operatives, and organic food family farms?

Hardly.

Again, from the article:

'Insurers, too, are concerned about hurricanes, tornadoes, and wildfires occurring more frequently. Three of the top six years for catastrophic insured losses have occurred since 2005 with a combined $142 billion in expenses, according to the Insurance Information Institute, an industry research group that has tracked the costs since 1989.

Data about climate, which was primarily used by federal agencies and insurance companies in the past, is now sought by all types of businesses and organizations, from health care providers to banks to manufacturers, said Kyle Beatty, the president of Verisk Climate. Verisk, headquartered in New Jersey, bought a Lexington climate research firm six years ago in anticipation of growing demand for climate information.

A retailer may want to know the likelihood of major storms downing power lines and triggering blackouts that would close stores, Beatty said. A manufacturer might want to diversify suppliers if a particular contractor is in a flood-prone region.

“The business reaction is to the fact that they’re experiencing impacts to their operations and earnings that they haven’t in the past, they need strategies to address that,” Beatty said.'

So it's retailers, manufacturers, insurers, financial institutions.  These are the types of organizations that get their work done through - you guessed it - projects.  That means they need project managers who understand the background and drivers of these changes.

We insist that it's time to get smart about this, if only for increased job opportunities and security.  Stay tuned to People, Planet, Profits & Projects.  We'll continue to keep you knowlegeable about sustainability and project management - and the increasingly important intersection between the two.

*although the overwhelming majority (97%) of climate scientists will tell you that it is...

We know that some project managers are climate change skeptics.  We know that project managers aren’t limited to any part of the political spectrum.  We get that sustainability may seem like a hifalutin, pompous, philosophical idea that just isn’t that, well, project-managy.

We get all of this.

In fact, it’s important that a project manager be a skeptic.  Blindly accepting an overly optimistic estimate, for example, can doom a project.

And yet, take this example: as a team leader, we cannot tell what motives our team members have – we can only observe their behavior.   We need to manage our project teams on that observed behavior, and the best of us look for the root motives to understand and work with team members’ interests.

See: http://www.sparknotes.com/psychology/psych101/motivation/section1.rhtml

Now, take the example and expand it to what we observe (whatever we believe) when it comes to climate change.

Case in point: Boston.  There is a cover story in a recent Boston Globe Magazine entitled, “Getting Ready for Global Warming – Boston Under Water”.  In it, you will find a list of five things that Boston is doing right now to prepare for the effects of global warming.

Every single one of these “things” is truly an initiative which consumes resources, has a definitive start and finish date, is unique and… well..  does this sound like anything familiar?  It should.  Because all five things are projects.

So our point is this.  Wherever you stand on climate change – you believe it, you’re cynical, you’re skeptical, it’s a sham, a conspiracy, whatever – wherever you stand, real projects are being launched that need real project management expertise and real project managers.

So, for example, would you want to be out of contention for a project to redesign buildings so that their first floors are 42 inches above the current 100-year flood level, with all electrical and mechanical systems on the roof, where a surge resistant reef is built around sites along the waterfront, and it is designed to keep working even after a Hurricane Sandy-like superstorm?

Now let’s open up our blinders even further, beyond Boston, beyond the United States.  The EU has just approved more than 280M Euros for new environmental and climate change projects. - 

So you see, whatever you think of climate change…wherever you are on the political spectrum.. if you want to expand your own portfolio of project management opportunities, it may pay to  get increasingly conversant on the topics of climate change risk and the response that businesses are planning.  And executing.  Now.  Right now.

Ignoring this, by keeping your head in the sand, or letting your own views cloud your view of these opportunities could be hazardous to your career.

Thoughts?

We're lucky to be in a field, a discipline, a career - whatever you choose to call it - which has a tremendous, rosy, powerful future.  A recent feature in PM Network has this to say:

"By 2020, 15.7 million new project management jobs will be added around the globe, with an economic impact of more than US$18 trillion."  -PMI's PM Talent Gap Report

This actually puts pressure on organizations to find project managers, having to compete for project managers like you.  Not a bad position for you to be in, eh? 

So here's where it gets interesting to us at EarthPM, where we've been pushing for integration of sustainability thinking into project management with books and blog postings for what seems like a decade.  It turns out that project managers WANT (dare we even say need) to be part of the greater effort of their organization.  We mean "greater" in both senses of the word:

• The greater, larger, bigger picture that evokes the bigger, enlarged, longer term
• The "greater good' - that is, doing things that help the overall human family and our environment

And, as you've seen in prior posts, organizations are striving for that same thing; just look at the mission and vision statements of various companies.  Better yet: look at the mission statement of YOUR OWN company.  We just posted a story about this on our own blog.  Have a look.

But right now, back to "Feel the Power".

Here are some outstanding quotes from the April, 2014 PM Network magazine that we found particularly poignant:

"Project managers thrive when they see the larger organizational strategy and understand how their initiatives affect it. “Project managers have a lot of passion for what they do. They like to feel like they’re part of a greater good and can help organizations achieve their objectives,” says Scott Fass, PMP, managing director of advisory practice, PwC, a PMI Global Executive Council member in Washington, D.C., USA."

So here is a reaffirmation of what we've been saying: PMs do a better job, and even enjoy the work better when they see how their project fits into the bigger picture.  Now - how about that greater-good thing?

"SFE Produksjon lets candidates know of its corporate social responsibility program, especially its focus on green, renewable energy. “Many potential applicants view the positive public image of the company as a favorable trait when considering applying for a position,” says Oyvind Huus, PMP, head of project management, SFE Produksjon, Sandane, Norway."

There it is.  Here's a company (and they are by no means alone) stating directly that companies recruit project managers by putting their 'green side up' on the table and communicating their values to PM candidates, with respect to CSR (in this case the environment).

So, you do the math.

1. Organizations are going to need more and more project managers
2. Organizations are giving increasing value to sustainability as a core objective
3. Project managers are increasingly interested in the greater good
4. Organizations understand numbers 1, 2, and 3, above.

It all adds up to this:

Excel at your job.  Add competency in sustainability.  Get in touch with your sustainability-oriented self and develop strategic, long-term thinking capability (without losing that "get'R' Done" PM attitude).    You'll increase your ability to thrive even further in this environment of high desirability for project managers.

And feel the power!  You are in demand.