People, Planet, Profits & Projects

Green (sustainable) IT is becoming more and more popular for many reasons.  A couple of years ago I developed a graduate level Green IT course for a major university.  I will be teaching it for the third time this coming semester.  It has always gotten good reviews from the students.  Most of them have been full time computer science students or IT industry practitioners.   I am confident that they will take their learnings back to their organizations or apply them to their new jobs when they graduate. 

 There are many areas where sustainability can play a large role, but the “lowest hanging fruit” for Green IT is the data center.  The first and foremost reason is that there is a huge energy cost to operate a data center.  Secondly, or tied for first, is the magnitude of data we collect, move, store, manipulate, and retrieve.  Because of that massive amount of data, we need more and more infrastructure, and larger and larger, capacity to handle that data.

Relatively simple solutions are available for reducing energy consumption, therefore electricity costs and carbon dioxide emissions (2 of the three elements of the triple bottom line - profits and planet).  Here is an example of a green IT project.  I also teach project management at the same university, and one of the requirements for my class is a group project.  This semester, one of the groups developed a project plan for a project that we defined in our book as Green by Project Impact (projects that may not have a green outcome like an electric car, but do have an immediate impact on their environment).  It is a project to green up a data center by upgrading the servers to thin clients.  Think of thin clients as similar to the terminals that were connected to a central computer, before desk tops (although a lot of you will not remember those “good old days”).  Take my word for it, there was a time when there was virtually no processing power on the desk , but rather everything had to go through a central computer.  With a thin client, the computing power, software, applications, storage and network access are available and managed at a central location.

The student group did a comparison of thin client deployment versus traditional PCs.  They found that a thin client uses about 14% of the energy (therefore about 14% of the electrical costs and 14% of the CO₂ emissions) than a traditional PC.  This is not quite an apples to apples comparison as there are associated costs with the data center, but we have to remember that in most organizations, the data center already exists for storage, backup, etc., therefore is already a cost center.  The result in a thin client project deployment is a significant savings in energy consumption which goes right to the bottom-line.  Of course there is a cost to the project.  The group predicted that a project to deploy 1100 thin clients would be approximately $1.2 million for equipment, $179,000 for resources with a total project cost of approximately $1.4 million.  Given that all factors stay the same, energy cost payback period for the entire project would be about 6 years.    One factor that makes the project even more attractive is that the average PC is about $1500, the thin client about $300. 

In this instance, it is an easier decision by the project manager to recommend a thin client deployment for a data center upgrade.  It takes into account the greenality of the project as well as the aspect of cost reduction.  The payback period is reasonable and the fact that the thin clients are significantly less expensive makes it more attractive.  The final “p” in the triple bottom-line is people, so is there an increase in productivity with thin clients?  That question still has to be answered, but as Meat Loaf said, “Two out of three ain’t bad.”

No, that's not a typo, I was acually referring to IKEA, the big box seller of RIKTIG ÖGLA  and FLÄRDFULL.

We want to send you off to a great new TED talk.  It's by Steve Howard, a sustainability professional who now holds the position of Chief Sustainability Officer at IKEA.

This will be a short post.  Why?  Because Steve says what he says so well.  We do, however, want to make one very subtle, quiet point, delicately, and carefully...

YOUR BUSINESS LEADERS ARE 'GETTING' SUSTAINABILITY!  NOW IT'S OUR TURN AS PORTFOLIO, PROGRAM, AND PROJECT MANAGERS TO GET IT, TOO! 

Now, enjoy the show.

In the US, it's almost Thanksgiving, a major family holiday.  Mom, Dad, family, and friends - kids of all ages -  gather to give thanks for all that they have and to celebrate this 'harvest' time of year. 

And so we choose this timeframe to talk about the important role that Mom and Dad play as project managers - and/or leaders in general - when it comes to integrating sustainability thinking into the mindsets of their families.

We'd like to draw your attention to Project Sunlight.  This is a project created by Unilever targeting parents as the key influencers for their families, and thus communities.  They invite, and we also invite you to first  watch a film online which aims to both inspire and motivate parents to then act by doing a number of small things which, added together, will contribute to a better society and environment. Unilever, the parent company of well-known brands like Ragu, Hellmans, Lipton, Popsicle, and Ben & Jerry's, is trying to get the public to join a movement and become part of a growing community of sustainability-minded people and organizations.

We know how hard it is to start grass-roots, ad-hoc movements.  As a company of two people, EarthPM is finally seeing some success in this area but only after years, hundreds of blog posts, and scores of presentations at PMI Global Congresses, PMI Chapter Meetings, and PMO Symposia as well as in local sustainability organizations, constantly pushing the message that there IS an intersection of Sustaianbility and Project Management and how we as project managers can contribute to lasting success - triple bottom line success - of our projects' products.  But this is Unilever, a large multinational corporation.  They can make a quicker, deeper, broader difference.  We urge you to help them.  At least watch the video, and as you do so, consider the Project Management role that Mom and Dad have in influencing the world around them.  Most likely, you - as a project manager who is the child of Mom and Dad and a Mom or Dad yourself, are at least at that intersection: the intersection of parent and project manager.  Now, just extrapolate that to the intersection of project management and sustainability.  Of course, if you're having trouble extrapolating or just find this idea intriguing we invite you to read our book, Green Project Management, which covers the topic well, so we're told.

Unilever's Project Sunlight lets you take action locally as a Mom, as a Dad, as a child, as a Project Manager.  And by definition, if you take on one of these challenges, you are a Project Manager!  Check out what you can do in the USA on this Facebook link.

Happy Thanksgiving to our USA-based readers.  We're thankful to have this opportunity on Projects@Work to share our thoughts and hope you have a terrific holiday week and weekend!

We've just returned from the West Coast (sometimes called the 'left coast") of the USA, after a great week at the PMO Symposium in San Diego, California.  Our presentation, "Should Your PMO Serve as a Chief Project Sustainability Office" was well received, and although the visit was good, it was short, and it was time to fly back over our magnificent continent and return to the East (right) Coast.

And just around the time of our visit, the Pacific Coast states of California, Oregon, and Washington, along with the province of British Colombia, did something that the corresponding national governments have failed to do. 

They agreed on something.

But hey, what's the big deal?  How big are these few states and a province?  Well, combined, they would be the world's 5th largest economy.  That's why it's a big deal.

And what does this pact mean?  Further, since you're probably a project manager, what does it mean to you?  To us?  To your PMO?

Actually, you can easily find out yourself.  The document is surprisingly succinct, given that it comes from 4 governments and 2 countries.  Have a look at it here.

In this two-page document, the word, 'program' appears explicitly four times, the word 'project' appears explicitly four times and both are implicitly woven through almost each and every paragraph in the document.  Here are a couple of paragraphs to illustrate our point:

Project managers may have a “rough ride” when it comes to sustainability.  As a naturalist, Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt certainly had a clear vision about sustainability with his “conservation movement”, a social, political, and environmental (sound familiar) movement whose mission is to protect natural resources.  The Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP), an organization founded on Roosevelt’s principles, is an alliance formed in 2000 with Trout Unlimited until 2002 when TRCP applied for their own tax exempt status.  TRCP’s primary mission is to protect quality open spaces for hunting and fishing. 

We’ve written and spoken to many attendees of webinars, key notes, workshops and conferences about the Deepwater Horizon Gulf oil spill.  In this month’s issue of Fly Fishing in Salt Water (Nov/Dec 2013, Vol. 20 No. 6, pg. 62), there is a brief note titled TRCP Partnership.  “The Theodore Roosevelt Partnership (TRCP) and other sport fishing interests have stressed the need for stakeholder input in charting a project-based approach for recovering fisheries and economics affected by the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Recreational anglers as well as the Gulf Coast Ecosystems Restoration Council welcomed a vote to adopt a plan outlining recovery efforts both ecological and financial for the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of the oil spill.  Projects will help repair habitat degradation that occurred from the spill and address issues affecting the region that date from decades before.” [Emphasis is mine.]

A couple of things stood out in above brief note.  The statement includes or infers all of the aspects of the triple-bottom line, financial (or economic), social, and environmental.  “The need for stakeholder input” is a very telling phrase for us project managers.  The Project Management Institute in its Fifth Edition of the PMBOK® thought that stakeholders were so important that it added Stakeholder Management as the 10^th knowledge area.  It is rare that PMI® makes additions of this magnitude, so we pay attention.  Stakeholders needs have always been important to project success, but those needs are also being driven back into the decision making process for choice of projects.  Stakeholders are also becoming more and more concerned with environmental issues which will help to drive more sustainable projects.  One of our tips to project managers is to become aware of those issues and take advantage of that awareness to avail themselves of opportunities in this emerging project area.

 “A project-based approach for recovering fisheries and economies” is a reality.  Wouldn’t we want to both be aware of the issues and be able to speak the language of sustainability in project management (SiPM™)?  Again, forewarned is forearmed!  As project managers, the more information we can accumulate on a particular area of interest, the more we can differentiate ourselves to take advantage of new opportunities.  One of the key phrases in the note is “…address issues affecting the region that date from decades before.”  Not only is the relatively recent oil spill creating projects, but the potential of decades of damage will also drive projects.  If all of these projects are to be successful, it is my assertion that we will need knowledgeable project managers, to smooth out their sustainability ride.

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