The center span is gone. Driving north on Route 1 in Portsmouth, New Hampshire got a little more exciting. You can’t do it! As part of the demolition of the Memorial Bridge over the Piscataqua River in Portsmouth, the 2-million pound center span was lowered onto a barge and is destined for Boston Harbor where it will be dismantled and assembled. The next, and fascinating part for me will be the removal of the massive concrete weights that can be seen high up in the bridge structure. I haven’t seen any discussions on the plans for those weights, but I am keeping my eye out.
- London Bridge at Lake Havasu
The decision to recycle the bridge components comes after a search for someone to reuse the structure. Perhaps someone would choose to buy the bridge, for a nominal fee, and then rebuild it over some big western reservoir. Unfortuately, our Memorial Bridge, while beautiful and historic to us, did not provoke the same feelings in others, at least not enough to “have bridge will travel.” It did not have the same allure as say the London Bridge. In Lake Havasau, Arizona, there is an entire resort village built around London Bridge. Now that’s reuse. I have a great photo of Memorial Bridge taken on a foggy day. I know, beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I guess I will have to be content with knowing that the bridge, while a classic to me, will live on in whatever project receives its material .
The Useful Project Manager
This posting is to point you to a resource – a brand-new resource – for project managers.
It’s a blog started by colleague and friend Jim Stewart of JP Stewart Associates.
When Jim told me the idea for his blog, “The Useful Project Manager“, we wondered whether the word “Useful” modified Project or Manager.
In other words, was he going to write about Useful Projects (how to make sure projects were better-connected to their enterprises’ mission and vision, and strategies) or Useful PMs (how to become more effective as a PM).
It’s the latter, of course. And we think you will find this to be a very helpful and, yes, useful, resource.
But let’s focus a bit on our propensity to misunderstand (or at least misinterpret) what Jim was trying to say with his title.
It’s the way we think. And we think there is an advantage (see our post about being unplugged) to thinking this way. You see, we think that projects are more useful if they are indeed connected up to your enterprise’s power source (mission/vision/values) and to its “distribution network” (operations).
And of course, “use” is a very important word in sustainability. Think “reduce-reuse-recycle”. Or, better yet, think of a project’s product and the attributes of that PRODUCT of the project which can (and should, we insist) be considered in the project’s deployment. The waste involved in coffee modules, for example, in a single-serve coffeemaker. The paving surface on a stretch of road, which could kick up the fuel efficiency of the 10s of thousands of cars which will travel over it. These all involve the long-term “use” of the project.
This is why we see this “other” connection in being “useful”.
But for now…we come back to more simple and direct “use” of Jim’s blog – useful, helpful, handy resources that you will … USE!
Make it a point to visit his blog regularly!