People, Planet, Profits & Projects

In the latest edition of PM Network there is an article entitled “Weather Alert: Flooding Ahead.”  The subtitle is “It’s high time to plan for high tides with global projects” and it is by Mark Guarino.  The article points out a striking example of how future projects will be driven by issues of sustainability; by the triple-bottom line, people, planet, profits. 

Rich and I are facilitating a ‘sustainability in project management’ course for the Sustainability Learning Centre and we use two examples of how high tides are affecting the environment.  An island that was being contended by India and Pakistan, South Moore Island, AKA Talpatti, is no longer a problem.  It is now under water due to rising ocean levels.  The people of Talpatti needed to relocate themselves and their personal property (a project).  The other example we used was from an article in The Boston Globe, August 4, 2012, Rising Tide of Concern.”  That article pointed out the developers and building owners in Boston are considering locating their electrical facilities on upper floors, building new buildings with floodwalls, higher first floors, landscaping buffers, etc., to prevent the problems caused in New York by Hurricane Sandy. 

We’ve always believed that project managers should avail themselves of the opportunity to lead sustainability efforts.  Whether it is an obviously sustainable project like managing the installation of a wind farm, to managing the planning organization and implementation of a new software release, project managers should be involved.  One of the ways to avail yourself of those opportunities is to understand that there is a 'rainbow of green ; from projects that are green by definition, projects that are green by project impact, projects that are green by product impact, and projects that are green in general.  The specifics are detailed in our book and we’ve talked about it quite a bit in this blog as well as on our website. 

That’s not what I want to talk about here.  What I want to talk about here is that it is just as important to the project manager to be aware of the terminology and the fundamentals about sustainability in project management.  Yes, you can get a good basic understanding from our book.  In addition, Greg Balestrero (he gets it!),  former President and CEO of Project Management Institute (PMI®) is now working with  the International Institute of Learning (IIL) and will be speaking during International Project Day (Thursday, November 7^th, 2013) on the subject of Organizational Survival: Profitable Strategies for a Sustainable Future.  For more information go to IIL’s website.   It’s free and you can get some PDU’s and it will be available on demand for those who cannot participate during the live presentations.  Greg and Nathalie Udo also co-authored a book by the same name as the presentation.  That book is now available.

Another way is to become more educated is to take a course or two in sustainability and sustainability in project management.  The Sustainability Learning Centre has some great offerings in this area. 

Forewarned is forearmed.  Arming yourself with sustainability and sustainability in project management information is another way to make you, a project manager, more marketable as well as ready to take advantage of any and all opportunities.

We’re just back from the PMI North America Congress.  It was a very good take with well over 2,000 colleagues sharing knowledge and doing some pretty intense networking.  We were presenters ourselves, but this post is not about that talk, it's about others.

Let's start with the venue - New Orleans was the backdrop and theme for 2013, and that city knows how to host a convention full of project managers.  Everywhere you go in NOLA there is music, beautiful music, flowing around each streetcorner and from classic locations like Preservation Hall.

The music of New Orleans is jazz.  We got to experience this wonderful, expressive, eloquent music at Preservation Hall.  This is some of the most eloquent music we've ever heard.

And speaking of eloquence, that’s what we want to discuss with you.  Although there’s a twist.  This is eloquence in which the speaker doesn’t necessarily even realize that they’re being eloquent.

Here’s the deal.  Over the last four or five years, we’ve been expressing (hopefully eloquently) a need for project managers to be more focused on their products’ triple bottom line.  Yes, we mean product, not project or process.  Every project has some sort of outcome – we’re using the word product to refer to this.

And we’ve seen others discuss this topic – or surrounding topics – in such a way that they describe our exact main points - the points of what we call greenality:

• Long-term (sustainability-oriented) thinking - beyond the delivery of their project's product to the steady-state operation
• Use of information from the above in initiating, planning, executing, monitoring and controlling, and closing processes
• Connectivity to the organization’s mission/vision/values
• Strong awareness of, and concern for, for a triple bottom line, including social, economic, and ecological aspects.

But they do this in a way in which they don’t…. quite… get… to sustainability.  We've seen it in PM Journal magazine articles (see posts on EarthPM).  We've seen it in blog posts.  And we saw it in the presentations at PMI North America Congress in New Orleans. They come so, so close, but don’t make the point that this is really about integrating sustainability into project management.

Here’s an example from the PMI Congress.

One of the speakers, Kevin Repa, in his talk, “Planning for Program Closure”,  was eloquent in his description of the closing of the Space Shuttle program.  He held the audience’s attention as he described the intriguing story of ending the space shuttle program and figuring out what to do with its significant artifacts (see sidebar). 

To summarize, the shuttle program initiated a “closing project” initially estimated to cost $2.8B or more in and of itself.  Through good project management practices enumerated by Kevin, the project came in well under that, almost by a factor of ten.

One very striking and practical example is what happens to the shuttle vehicles themselves.  They are a “must” for the museum that has one of everything.  And when these shuttles go to a museum, the planners have to know whether the shuttle presents any safety issues to museum-goers.   Are there radiation issues?  Are there any components that will outgas poisons to bystanders?  These are questions that may not have been thought of if the project managers hadn’t thought about the steady-state disposition of the product of their project.

But the underlying message was this: had the planning for the disposition of the shuttle and all of its supporting infrastructure been incorporated into the project from the start, the closure would have had better management of risks, lower environmental impact, and overall even further improved financials.

Mr. Repa used the phrase, “think centuries, not decades”.  Eloquently put.  And unconsciously, Kevin was a huge proponent of our effort to incorporate sustainability thinking into our discipline of  PM.

Kevin, we at EarthPM salute your eloquence, and your being right on target from our perspective.  We would humbly suggest that you and others could parse out the excellent message that you have with the 'greenality' framework we provide above.

And the rest of you?  Eloquent or not, we urge you to be very, very conscious of your key role as project manager when it comes to disposition of your project’s product.  Stay tuned here and at EarthPM's main blog, we can help.

We are often asked the question “What can we do to become more sustainable?”  Project managers are not only interested in their processes/projects and making them more sustainable, but also what can they do to make their everyday lives more sustainable.  The answer to that question is very complex because of all of the sustainability opportunities that exist.  We certainly don’t know them all, although we do know a lot ways to become more sustainable, the connection between sustainable business and project management and a more general connection between ourselves and sustainability. 

Here is something we came across recently.  “Boston University (BU) Dining Services is pleased to report the sustainable progress that we have made on 2012 across campus.  As we continue our mission to serve wholesome, delicious, and affordable food to the BU community and its guests, we strive to do so with a parallel goal: the extension of dining hall as a classroom.  As we change how things are done in our kitchen and dining rooms, we strive to communicate both the challenges and benefits to our main customers: students.  By making students aware of our initiatives, goals and challenges, we hope to create knowledgeable and empowered consumers and operators, who will demand high standards from their food sources, both while on campus and as they make their own path after graduation.”

One of our assertions is that consumers are becoming smarter about sustainability and that is a driver for organizations to become more sustainable.  Efforts like this at BU only reinforce our assertion by providing the education to make “smarter” consumers. 

BU’s Dining Services started their efforts with buying local.  Not only does it save transportation costs and carbon footprint, the choices are also wholesome for the students, “preserve farmland in New England and support environmentally friendly agricultural practices.”  Produce, dairy, baked goods and groceries like Ken’s Salad Dressing are locally sourced.   Offerings to the students include vegan and “cage-free and American Certified Humane Eggs.” "BU’s Union Food Court is considered The Greenest Food Court in the Country.”

As we all know, to be truly effective in our sustainability efforts, it has to be a total program.  In 2013, BU Dining Services were asked to serve as a case study for Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) Recycling Works program.  BU’s contributions will help other Massachusetts institutions and businesses prepare for the upcoming organics waste stream ban.   We’ll talk more about that ban in a later post.  In 2012 the waste diversion rate at the student union was 69% and 32 tons of waste was diverted at the 2012 commencement ceremony.    There was a 50% increase in beverage purchases and the list goes on.  Metrics are important, as we’ve said many times before; you can’t manage what you can’t measure.   [While this phrase is often attributed to Deming, in truth, no one knows where it came from, although it is also often attributed to Peter Drucker. – a little trivia for your]

Universities, companies and individuals are all getting the sustainability message.  When you think about it, these are changes, and therefore require change agents (project managers) to implement.  That is the just one example of the sustainability connections to project management.  For more information please see full report.

One of the “elephants in the room” when it comes to sustainability is “what’s in it for me (us)”?  We’ve always contended that there is a lot in it for you (collectively), whether you are an organization or an individual, and many of you know that.  One of the aspects of greenality, a word we coined while writing our book, Green Project Management, is the “hugger-hummer” scale.  The hugger-hummer scale is an arbitrary scale that we developed.  At one extreme end of the scale are the so called “tree hugger” and at the other extreme end is the antithesis.  However, we believe that most people live in the area somewhat in the middle.  Those to the right of middle (hummer side of course) may be moved closer to the middle when provided with some information.

In a recent webinar, Metrics that Matter: Leading Companies Know How to Measure Employee Engagement, presented by greenbiz, a great resource for those interested in sustainability, points out that there are ways to measure (provide data) to organizations about the positive effects of sustainability.  There are companies, including the host of the webinar, practically green™ that can provide “digital sustainability engagement programs” to global companies.  Some of the metrics that can be tracked and reported are employee personal activities related to sustainability, commuting and business travel.  These programs use social media, intranets, and more, to make it easy for individuals as well as organization to capture their efforts.

The program includes four level; (1) direct benefits including employee participation rate, ongoing engagement rates, actions/activities completed, number of people influenced, environmental/social impact, and return on investment (ROI).

Level 2 - ROI, Sony Electronics looks at ways to reduce employee footprint while at work and their contributions to Sony’s environmental and efficiency efforts.  The results were a savings of $84/employee, 101.78 metric tons of CO₂ saved, 11 tons of waste diverted, 36,228 gallons of water saved, and 2,000 gallons of fuel saved. 

Level 3 is beyond resource costs including; brand, health, engagement scores, and employee personal savings.   Caesars International uses “Codegreen Rewards”.   It targets increased brand approval from green efforts, employee health through green living, what personal actions by employees have been achieved as well as personal savings resulting from those actions. 

Level 4 is looking to the future with improved verification and real-time metric collection, innovative connections (Smart phones, social media) and engagement between employees, suppliers, customers, and the community.

No matter what size company you have or what size company you work for, there are ways to measure your sustainability efforts.  Those measurements help to show the “real” benefits of sustainability and how they help the bottom line (and social consciousness) of both the organization and the employee.

Here you see a young lady with what dentistry and marketing professionals would tell you is a confident smile.  So much in life depends on confidence and likelihood.

And sometimes our lives and perhaps (dare we say this?) the continuation of our species also depends on confidence.

This time, though, it's about confidence in the much more technical sense of the word: confidence levels in data and assertions and conclusions made from that data.  It is - as we assert during our courses on communications, presentation skills, and project management, about the promotion from Data to Information, Information to Knowledge, and Knowledge to Wisdom.

We know that not everyone agrees on whether Climate Change is real, or if real, whether or not it is caused by 'little old us' humans.  But the international body charged with making those conclusions has recently stated its case.  The sometimes-maligned IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) has dug in, checked, rechecked, and rechecked the checking of the checking and has made a bunch of conclusions, which we'll summarize at the bottom of the post.  However our focus is on the idea of confidence levels.

Here is how the IPCC itself describes confidence and likelihood:

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Description of confidence

On the basis of a comprehensive reading of the literature and their expert judgement, authors have assigned a confidence level to the major statements in the Technical Summary on the basis of their assessment of current knowledge, as follows:

Description of likelihood

Likelihood refers to a probabilistic assessment of some well-defined outcome having occurred or occurring in the future, and may be based on quantitative analysis or an elicitation of expert views. In the Technical Summary, when authors evaluate the likelihood of certain outcomes, the associated meanings are:

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Once again, regardless of your feelings on Climate Change, or the UN, or this panel, regardless of your politics, there is a lesson here in communciation.  As project managers, we asssert that 95% or our work is in the area of communicatons and uncertainty.  And of course - the overlap - intersection of both - is in communicating uncertainty, or communicating in an environment of uncertainty.  So the way that the IPCC parses out this scale could be handy to you no matter what you think of the conclusions themselves.

Our coaching to you here is two-fold.  You might say it is about the medium AND the message.  The medium, the careful way in which the IPCC makes its case, is one thing.  And the message - the warning that they have for you and I and everyone on the planet, and we would assert, especially us, as change-agent project managers - is that we need to examine what types of changes may be necessary if we are doubly arrogant (see great George Carlin video here).  That is, arrogant enough to think that we caused some of the climate issues below, and arrogant (and confident?) enough to think that we just may be able to turn it around or at least slow it up.

Here are just some of the key findings.  Note the references to the confidence and likelihood levels they mention above.

The entire summary report is available here.