People, Planet, Profits & Projects

As we consider how to integrate long-term thinking into project management, one thing we really need to remember is the project manager as an individual.  Lately our focus has shifted to the program and portfolio manager, because that level is closer to the corporate mission and vision statements. 

That's still valid, and we think it's an important shift.

But it made us stop and think: are we doing this because of the positions of Program and Portfolio Management only, or is it because of the people who are at these levels?  Or is it a little of both?

WIth that in mind, we'd like to open a discussion about the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and how it relates to project management, and of course how it relates to long-term, big-picture thinking in project management.

This cannot be a thorough treatment of the subject - for that you'll have to wait for our upcoming book and assessment tool (The Sustainability Wheel).  But we want to get our readers and blog followers used to this topic because it's important to us (and we think, to you, too).

Read through the following, adapted from public sources, inlcudig Wikipedia.  Do a little thinking - about yourself, your favorite project managers, your most - and least - successful peers, and how these four sets of Myers-Briggs "temperaments" relate to those projects.

• Artisans (ST) are concrete and adaptable. Seeking stimulation and virtuosity, they are concerned with making an impact. Their greatest strength is tactics. They excel at troubleshooting, agility, and the manipulation of tools, instruments, and equipment.^[3] The two roles are as follows:

·         Operators are the directive (proactive) Artisans. Their most developed intelligence operation is expediting. The attentive Crafters and the expressive Promoters are the two role variants.

·         Entertainers are the informative (reactive) Artisans. Their most developed intelligence operation is improvising. The attentive Composers and the expressive Performers are the two role variants.

• Guardians (SJ) are concrete and organized. Seeking security and belonging, they are concerned with responsibility and duty. Their greatest strength is logistics. They excel at organizing, facilitating, checking, and supporting. The two roles are as follows:

·         Administrators are the directive (proactive) Guardians. Their most developed intelligence operation is regulating. The attentive Inspectors and the expressive Supervisors are the two role variants.

·         Conservators are the informative (reactive) Guardians. Their most developed intelligence operation is supporting. The attentive Protectors and the expressive Providers are the two role variants.

• Idealists (NF) are abstract and compassionate. Seeking meaning and significance, they are concerned with personal growth and finding their own unique identity. Their greatest strength is diplomacy. They excel at clarifying, individualizing, unifying, and inspiring. The two roles are as follows:

·         Mentors are the directive (proactive) Idealists. Their most developed intelligence operation is developing. The attentive Counselors and the expressive Teachers are the two role variants.

·         Advocates are the informative (reactive) Idealists. Their most developed intelligence operation is mediating. The attentive Healers and the expressive Champions are the two role variants.

• Rationals (NT) are abstract and objective. Seeking mastery and self-control, they are concerned with their own knowledge and competence. Their greatest strength is strategy. They excel in any kind of logical investigation such as engineering, conceptualizing, theorizing, and coordinating. The two roles are as follows:

·         Coordinators are the directive (proactive) Rationals. Their most developed intelligence operation is arranging. The attentive Masterminds and the expressive Fieldmarshals are the two role variants.

·         Engineers are the informative (reactive) Rationals. Their most developed intelligence operation is constructing. The attentive Architects and the expressive Inventors are the two role variants.

So here's our take on this:

Although the MBTI is not a definitive science, nor is it a way to definitively decide who can do what jobs, and although it indicates tendencies and not permanent behaviors, it's fairly common experience that certain types (for example, ESTJ specifically, and Artisans in general) do better, naturally, as project managers. 

But these types (and we're in that category ourselves) are NOT great at the long-term, big-picture thinking needed if sustainability is to be integrated in the project.  It's the Rationals that we need on our teams to point us to this holistic, sustainable view. 

We're doers.  We're focused (as we NEED to be) on getting the project objectives done.  But it's in our own best interest (to say little of the organization, the community, and the planet) to have Artisans around to remind us of 'benefits realization' and the steady-state of the product of our project.

We'll be blogging about this and including this topic in our new book.  But for now, we urge you to share your opinions about this.  Who knows, you may end up being quoted in the book!

Further reading:

Good general info on Myers-Briggs:

http://www.myersbriggs.org/my-mbti-personality-type/mbti-basics/

Nice paper which shows a chart illustrating the "best" PM MBTI types.

http://www.surrex-ps.com/whitepapers/The%20New%20Paradigm.pdf

Nice paper at the intersection of MBTI Typing and Project Management by Susanne Madsen (all of her stuff is good!)

http://www.susannemadsen.co.uk/uploads/6/3/2/3/6323088/pm_recruitement.pdf

Paper from PM Journal, June 2013:

MBTI Personality Types of Project Managers and Their Success: A Field Survey (available on PMI.org) site

Photo from http://design-milk.com

You may have missed this story, but here in the US, Democrats 'took to the Senate floor Monday night to talk about global warming and planned not to let up until morning. By midnight, lawmakers had been talking for nearly six hours'.  We suggest that you read one of the stories about this talk-a-thon here.  (This story was published on March 11 by NPR).

We're not political.  We're project managers.  We're focused on sustainability - but that doesn't put us anywhere in particular on the political spectrum.  We are advocates for learning and action in this area, and we believe that project managers are change agents, and some of the people in the world with the most power to DO something about making their projects, their programs, and their portfolios more sustainable.  And yes, that does involve the earth, but as our blog title says (look up there right now, folks, look at what it says!) we are looking at and acting on sustaining the social aspects of projects (People issues), ecological connections to projects (Planet issues), and financial longevity of organizations (Profit issues).

Still, it's frustrating to see an important body like the US Senate spend so much time talking and failing to act.  To quote the referenced article, "Democratic leaders have no plans to bring a climate bill to the Senate floor this year, so the speeches were about little more than theatrics. House Democrats pushed through a bill to limit greenhouse gas emissions blamed for global warming in 2009, then lost their majority the following election. A climate bill led by then-Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry collapsed in 2010 without a vote in the Democratic-controlled Senate.

So the Democrats have failed to act.  And many of the Republicans have failed to understand.  From the article:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the talkathon amounted to "30 hours of excuses" from senators who think it's OK that "families are losing work because of government attacks on the coal industry."

"Well it's not OK, it's cruel," McConnell said, speaking on the Senate floor before the talkathon began. "It's cruel to tell struggling coal families that they can't have a job because some billionaire from San Francisco disagrees with their line of work."

And so it goes.

But here's the secret, and the good news.  Although we recognize that it would make sense to have some sweeping changes in laws, there are things we can do as project managers to integrate sustaianbiltiy thinking in our projects.  One of the biggest is simply to make the connection from the mission/vision/value statements of your organization to your project's charters.  In an informal poll of 50 project managers in our classes, we found that only 5-8 of them even knew what the mission/vision statements were, and only 2 had seen the commitments made by their leaders to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) objectives.  We project managers - who are so focused on action, milestones, and deliverables - we are not prone to staying in a chamber and talking (while doing nothing) or boycotting that session altogether because we don't even have the sense to recognize the problem (that's our view of Democrats and Republicans, respectively, right now).

So - take some action RIGHT NOW.  Go to your company/organization's home page.  Click on the "About Us" section (or whatever it is called) and look for your leadership's statements on CSR.  You may be very surprised.  And you may be very empowered.  But either way, you will be able to take action which is tied to your leaders' ideas.

And that's more than the US Senate can say.  Or rather, it's more meaningful than anything they can say.

One of the reasons I've stuck with project management as a career choice for 150 years (well, okay it's a little less than that) is the challenge and fun of working across disciplines.  As PMs we have to make the engineers and marketeers play nicely together. 

And, as I said above... this can be challenging and... "fun". 

So we are indeed "silo busters".  This is a metaphor based on the idea of vertical organizations (Manufacturing, Marketing, Sales, Engineering) as silos (you know, those big tall cylinders you can see on farms to store grain; see above photo) and us as project managers providing the necessary ‘horizontal’ or cross-silo communication and collaboration one needs to have a project succeed.

This same scenario can – and must – take place at the corporate level as well if sustainability is to become part of the fabric of modern business.  Thankfully, it is happening.  From this week’s ‘edie’ report:

There is a growing awareness of how cross-sector partnerships are providing environmental benefits to business, particularly in the automotive industry, says Toyota's Steve Hope,  general manager of environmental affairs and corporate citizenship, told edie that industries are starting to break away from a linear way of thinking and companies leading in sustainability are looking wider than their "own doorstep".

Noticeably, wider industry collaboration is beginning to progress areas of resource efficiency, particularly water and energy, says Hope.

"We've joined the Centre for Industrial Sustainability, headed up by EPSRC. We're involved in various projects but this is where we can discuss these issues with other big companies from different sectors, such as Marks & Spencer's for example.

We’ve seen this ourselves.  As a proud contributor to ECOCAR2, we’ve seenoutstanding, sustainability-oriented, creative, productive collaboration between Government, the auto industry, the IT industry, and 15 great North American universities in their effort to take ‘leap-and-bound’ innovation in the development of a hybrid automobile.  Learn more about ECOCAR2 here.

We also see collaboration between customers and even competitors in the IT industry under the guidance of GreenTouch, where the goal is to to” deliver the architecture, specifications and roadmap to increase network energy efficiency by a factor of 1000 compared to 2010 levels”.  Read more about GreenTouch here.

The point?

The point is that once again, we as project managers are poised to be leaders in the area of breaking silo walls.  We, more than any other discipline, have the ‘muscle memory’ of getting people who don’t normally work together well – to play in perfect harmony for our project purposes.  We just have to bring our game to the next level and get our leaders, even our industries, to participate in collaborative efforts in which sustainability is brought to the forefront.  How do you do that? 

Learn more about sustainability, about CSR, and in particular, learn about your own company’s current commitment to these areas.  Stay tuned right here at People, Planet, Profits & Projects, where we post regularly on this topic and give examples of how companies are collaborating and gaining a competitive advantage by incorporating sustainability thinking throughout their company – and especially – especially – at the project and program levels.

You can also follow EarthPM’s blog where we’ve recently been talking about CVS/Caremark and their efforts to bring their mission/vision to reality with CSR projects – very interesting and important work.

So – strengthen those silo-busting muscles, work out regularly, get the vertical organizations in your enterprise to work together and….get stuff done!  It’s what we do.

As project managers, we are necessarily focused on the term of our projects.  Most projects - even the "long" ones that take years to complete - have numbers that are tiny when you compare the numbers in those plans comparison to the types of numbers associated with our planet.

But we do need to think about the long-term effects of the product of our project.  Our projects fit in with programs.  Our programs and projects are part of an overall portfolio, and that portfolio is your organization’s way of getting their overall objectives accomplished.  Further, at the portfolio and program level, it’s very likely that there are mission and vision statements that have Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) targets that are financially and ethically tied to the company’s shareholders, stakeholders, owners, and customers.

So regardless of your views on climate change, the connection you make from your project’s product to the longer-term view is a strategically and tactically important connection.

And that brings us to the beautiful picture you see at the top of today’s post.  It comes from a striking exhibit at Tufts University, Medford, MA, USA, entitled “Seeing Glacial Time: Climate Change in the Arctic”.  You can read about the exhibit in this article, and you can visit the exhibit’s home page here.  It’s on until May of this year, so … for a “long time” in project terms.

Here is the description of the exhibit:

Seeing Glacial Time examines how eight contemporary artists employ the "real time" of photography to visualize the largely imperceptible, gradual changes in "glacial time" from the bellwether Arctic region. Most of these artists have gone to extreme lengths—and distances—to capture and create their imagery. Some utilize scientific and appropriated photography as source material, while others depart from documentary traditions to create expressive images suggestive of a melancholic Sublime. This timely exhibition of paintings, photographs and a video installation introduces Boston audiences to artists who either have not been seen before in the area or have created new work for this occasion.

Featured artists are:

Subhankar Banerjee
Olaf Otto Becker
Resa Blatman
Diane Burko
Caleb Cain Marcus
Gilles Mingasson
Joan Perlman
Camille Seaman

But our point comes back around to us as project managers.  Perhaps as you wander around the museum exhibit – either in person, or virtually – take some time (there’s that word again) to consider some of your Gantt chart “bars” and whether or not they shouldn’t at least have a ‘dotted-line-dependency” with the impact of its product in the longer term, seen in the context of the planet.

Examples: What consumables does this product generate in the long-term?  Does the outcome improve, or at least keep stable, the working and living conditions for the local population where it will be used?  A new book on which we are working, one to follow up Green Project Management, will ask – and by way of real examples and measurements – will help answer these questions.

In the meantime…

Get the context, and ask yourself these questions.  It couldn’t hurt.

Image from http://londonleprechaun.com/

As we've looked at project management maturity and the intersection of sustainability and project management, we've come to realize that while it's critical to get the message of sustainability to project managers, perhaps we were (and we love dogs, so the analogy is okay) "barking up the wrong tree".

Ironically, our book, Green Project Management, which won the Cleland Award for Literature in 2011, pictures a tree.  All that's missing is a picture of us barking at it!

Perhaps, we've recently thought, the right audience is Program and perhaps even Portfolio Managers.  Indeed, we used this philosophy in successfully submitting a presentation for the PMO Symposium in San Diego last fall and that went very well and got a great reception.  But it's not enough.  Not nearly.

Adding to the consternation, and perhaps a cause for more barking, is the fact that the Third Edition of the Standard for Program Management mentions - even features - "sustainment".  This is a great sign.

For example, in section 4.5, Benefits Sustainment, the text says:

"Although responsibility for benefits sustainment falls outside the traditional project life cycle, this responsibility may remain within the program life cycle.  While these ongoing product, service, or capability support activities may fall within the scope of the program, they are typically operational in nature and are not run as a program or project".

It then goes on to list 13 bullets (example: 'monitoring the performance of the product, service capability, or results from a reliability and availability-for-use perspective...').  But not a single one of these bullets really, truly cover the ideas of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), or Triple Bottom Line (3BL) thinking.  They almost seem to be consciously avoiding the topic!

This unfortunate limitation (or containment) of sustainment, and we would assert, containment of sustainability, is something we're going to key in on in 2014 and beyond.  We plan to continue to work with project managers to bring sustainability thinking into projects, but we think we'll be more effective at the Program level.

What are your thoughts on the idea of Benefits Sustainment?  Is this indeed related to the ideas of sustainability?  Should the 13 bullets be expanded or reworded to include environmental and social impact explicitly?  Should "sustainment" itself be broadened in its definition in the Standard? 

Or, are we still barking up the wrong tree?  Please - throw us a bone!