We need you.

Please help us out by lending us just a moment of your time and going to this site, and signing our petition which would ask that PMI consider sustainability thinking in the rework of the upcoming 5th Edition of the PMBOK(R) Guide and any changes to the PMI Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct.

That’s it.  Just go here, fill out a few fields, keep it anonymous if you’d like.  We won’t bother you with email, you’re just lending your voice to the effort for putting sustainability (economic, ecological and social) into our discipline, in an integrated way, where it belongs.

You’d think we would be in favor of unplugging.  That is, saving energy, preventing waste…you know, being “green”.

And we are in favor of unplugging.

But there’s an exception - a big one.

That exception has to do with a huge source of power for Project Managers, a renewable source of endless project energy that often, as shown in the sophisticated schematic diagram on the right, goes untapped.  What is this power of which we speak?

It’s simple – it’s the power of your own organization. And it’s right there ‘above’ and ‘below’ you.

Let’s start at the top. We refer to the power in your organization’s Purpose, Identity, and Long-term Intentions.  These are the Top Leadership ideals that are often publicly stated, and always should be communicated to shareholders and employees.  They give “ideation” to  your organization.

Now let’s jump down to the bottom.  Your organization’s heartbeat, its flow, is its operations.  This is the day-to-day reality of your business.

And where are we, the project, program, and portfolio managers of the world?  We, dear friends, are where the rubber (the strategy that comes from Ideation) meets the road (the operations).

What’s all this coming from?

Below you see the Strategic Execution Framework or SEF (courtesy and copyright of IPS), which is used as the basis of Stanford University’s Center for Professional Development’s Certificate in Advanced Project Management.  We were lucky enough to attend one of their courses where this was presented.  It struck a chord with us because we have always preached that project managers can gain power by aligning with the organization’s strategy, and often overlook this.  Furthermore we have insisted that project managers often put on blinders when it comes to the “end” of their project, failing to connect with (or plug in to) the operations of the company.  Why?  We’re programmed to consider a project as having a definitive beginning and end – and that end occurs when we hand over the final deliverable.

Only “final” is not so final, after all.  When a project, say a bridge, is “done”, that only means that it can BEGIN sending pedestrians and/or vehicles over a river.  Does this mean we, as project managers, have to continue monitoring each car as it goes over the bridge?  Of course not.  But it DOES mean that we should think about the long-term disposition of the bridge in the steady state.  It will help us identify risk, connect with stakeholders that we mightn’t have thought of, and in general do a better job of creating sustainable projects.  In the bridge example, we assert that the project manager should consider the paving material, not just for its ability to provide improved mileage for vehicles, but also for its ability to withstand heating and cooling without breaking up and requiring repaving every year.  At least ask these questions.  It will help you connect to the operations ‘below’ and the ‘long term initiatives’ above.

Take a look at the SEF (you forgot already?  It stands for Strategic Execution Framework) below.  See how important it is for an organization to plug together all of the pieces if they want to get to a sustainable steady-state.  And guess who is at the center of it all?  You.  The well-connected project, program, and/or portfolio manager.

What we expound here are great general PM principles and practices, and by no coincidence, are great green (or better-stated) sustainable PM principles.  Even Stanford’s naming of the areas is important.  Notice “Long-term Intentions”.  Long-term.  Smacks of the word “sustainable”, doesn’t it?  How about “operations”?  Hmm, that word also implies ongoing, enduring…. yes, there it is – sustainability, again.

So why wouldn’t the middle portion of this flowchart (where we PMs live) not ALSO think sustainably?  We should!  We need to plug in!

• Connect upwards: You don’t have to be a top corporate HQ leader or CEO to know and live the organizations’ strategies.
  • Read and re-read your organization’s mission, vision and values.  Check messaging from company leaders.  Of course we would steer you to messages on sustainability and the environment, but you can derive power for your projects’ charters from any of the messages at the top of the SEF.

• Connect downwards: You can, and should, consider our discipline of PM as distinct from operations.  But that doesn’t mean we have to ignore them.
  • Get to know the people who will operate the product of your project
  • Understand the set of users as a stakeholder group and drink in their requirements and expectations as fodder for risk identification
  • Think life-cycle.  What happens to the final product of the operations of your product in the long term?  Can you learn anything with that mindset?  We assert that you absolutely can.

• PLUG IN! Peers in both directions are working towards sustainability, both economic and ecological.  We need to pair with these colleagues and learn from both.

Have a look at the SEF, we provide a large version below.

And think, really THINK about whether you are unplugged – and losing a precious source of project power.

So – are you unplugged?

Get connected.

Read our book – it has several chapters on these subjects.

So, they tell us today is “Pi Day“, in honor of the constant Π which represents the ratio of a circle’s circumference to its diameter, which works out to be approximately 3.141592653589793238462643383279502884197169399375.  Approximately.

Then they tell me that tomorrow is the “Ides of March”, the 15th day of March, and the date that, in 44 BC, was not such a good one for Julius Caesar, in that he was stabbed a number of times.  23 times in fact.  Stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, stab, and stab.  Yep.  A bummer of a day for Julius.

Um, so evidently there’s quite a bit of counting that takes place this time of year.  In fact, many of those in the northern hemisphere are counting the days until Spring.

What does this have to do with project management, or sustainability, or that intersection?

Well, one of the aspects of green project management that we’ve been describing and trying to convey to our (growing) audience (yet another thing we could count), is the fact that the company you are working for is most likely advertising to the world that they are becoming increasingly sustainable.  Whether you agree with the reasoning as to why they are becoming sustainable, and whether or not you agree that they should is rather a moot point.  They are making the claims, and there are people out there checking – and perhaps counting.

People, and organizations like Climate Counts.   We suggest you have a look at their site.

What are they about?  From their site:

Climate Counts is a collaborative effort to bring consumers and companies together in the fight against global climate change.

What you’ll find there is a rating system that determines how the companies stack up in terms of not only what they are saying, but what they are doing in the area of sustainability.

They use these criteria:

Has the company being analyzed…

• MEASURED their climate “footprint”
• REDUCED their impact on global warming
• SUPPORTED (or suggest intent to block) progressive climate legislation
• Publicly DISCLOSED their climate actions clearly and comprehensively

Explore your industry.  Check out your own company.  Who are the slackers, who are the leaders in this area?  Who, as they would say, are “Striding” (green icon), “Starting” (yellow), or “Stuck” (red).  Studies show that employees are motivated by their organization’s reputation.  What color is your company?  And also… know that  you aren’t the only one poking around at this site.  It’s extremely well-visited.  That means your customers are looking.  Your vendors are looking.  Your friends and family…  All kinds of stakeholders are looking.

Please take a moment and explore the site.  You will understand.

So why did we call this post, “Counting on you…”? Well, we think that your company leaders are counting on you, Mr. or Ms. Project Manager, to bring those scores up, and to have your company walk the talk – and in some cases, even start to talk the talk.  You are managing change.  You are driving the business objectives from the enterprise level with the execution of portfolios, programs, and projects.  We’ve written extensively on how you can do this, even if your project is what we call “Green in General” – that is, not directly related to energy, biodiversity, or conservation.  In fact, your project could be as unrelated as developing a new training program for a new payroll system.  There are still things you can do within that project and dealing with its product and steady-state that can help the organization along in the area of sustainability.  Our book has much more detail.  Buy a copy.  We are counting.

Our US Department of the Interior announced yesterday (16-December-2010) that it has drafted a new environmental policy to expedite large-scale solar power projects in six western states.

The policy, known as the Draft Solar Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement (PEIS), designates 24 sites on public lands in Arizona, California, Colorado, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah for renewable energy projects.

We’re not talking about small potatoes here.  This is about over 100 active solar applications covering 1 million acres that developers estimate could generate 60,000 megawatts of electricity.

Why should you care?

Well, if for no other reason: job security. Does this effort trigger projects (and therefore the need for project managers)?  Well, perhaps this will help answer that question.  The 32 page Introduction section of the PEIS document contains the word project of program over 150 times.

Presentation on the document structure:

Click here for a short video on how to use the document.

Link to full PEIS document:

Click here for the full document.

Click here for a set of Questions and Answers on the program.

As we have continued to assert – climate change cynic, or earthy enthusiastic environmentalist, as a project manager, you are best off – and importantly, best suited - to ride the green wave.  Start riding.

PM Network magazine is the monthly publication of the Project Management Institute, or PMI.  Its circulation is somewhere above 320,000 – and rising.

This month, they published their Fourth Annual “Trend Report”.  These trends, says the article, are “forcing companies to look at projects in radical and revolutionary ways”.  In fact, the subtitle of the cover story is, “The trends jolting the new business landscape”.

There are 5 trends identified and two of them fall squarely right here – at the intersection of green and project management.

The trends are:

• The New New World Order
• Practical Innovation
• Truly Sustainable Sustainability
• Complete Connectivity
• Perpetually Lean

Strangely, zebra boots are missing from the list.  But we got your attention, so they served their purpose.

The two trends we’re talking about as being here at EarthPM, you can probably guess, are Truly Sustainable Sustainability and Perpetually Lean.  In fact, these are two major threaded themes of our upcoming book.

In fact, really these two trends summarize EarthPM’s First Assertion: “A project run with green intent is the right thing to do, but it also will help the project team do things right.”

One could also argue that the other three are aspects of green PM, and in fact themes from the areas of the flattened world, innovation in process and product, and improvements in the way project teams can connect also are woven into our book.

So, we feel a sort of affirmation in seeing that our book has, for the lack of other words, a certain trendiness to it.  We’re honest, we don’t mind being a little trendy.

Have a look at the new PM Network magazine, linked here.

Here at EarthPM we talk about the intersection of green and project management - in fact, it’s our tagline.

So what do we mean by that?

What do we mean when we say that conserving resources is already in the “DNA” of project managers?

Well, if you really want to find out we’d have to say “read our upcoming book“.  But since [A] it’s not yet available, and [B] that’s not directly helpful, we thought we’d instead point out some examples via a posting we found on Bright Hub.

The posting, by Ronda Levine, can be found here.  We actually suggest that you read this brief article now and then come back to this entry.

We’ll wait.

…

…

…

Welcome back.

OK, you read it, right?  Or at least – you skimmed it…?  We hope so.

In the article, Ronda reviews the “top 10 tools for managing project resources”.  Interestingly (and we had nothing to do with this) she uses a wind farm as the intro graphic for the article.

The listing includes: PM Software, Resource Plan, Resource Breakdown Structure, Resource Histogram, the Resource Assignment Matrix, Collaboration Software, The PMBOK® Guide, Resource Leveling, Conflict Management, and Issue Logs.

All of these tools are used to conserve wasted energy on the project.  For example, a Resource Assignment Matrix (RAM) is one of the most powerful tools at the disposal (excuse the pun) of a project manager, in terms of preventing two or more team members from working on the same task – or even worse, having those two or more people assuming that ‘the other guy’ was working it, so nobody gets it done.

How does this relate to green?  Let’s go for the obvious example – two engineers both drive out to a job site 100 miles/km away, not realizing that the other was doing so.  We’re talking about project resources, yes, but we are also talking about the impact of this waste in the larger sense.  Multiply this by the number of times this sort of thing happens – and you get the idea.

Let’s look at the software pieces of Ronda’s list.  PM Software and Collaboration Software.  Both of these (read the book for the details) contribute greatly to savings for your project in terms of concise and clear communication (and thus fewer mistakes, and a greater chance of meeting your customers’ expectations), and they have an environmental aspect as well in terms of their reducing the number of times that folks have to fly or drive to different offices when that really isn’t necessary.

All of these tools – used properly – do contribute to project success, of course.  They also make your project more efficient and thus consume fewer resources.

That’s an example of the intersection of Green and Project Management.  We’re glad you decided to spend some time at this crossroads.  Please, spend some time looking around.

This is a followup to my post about whether or not nuclear power is considered green power and Vermont, the Green Mountain State’s issue with the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant license renewal.  I was channel surfing today and because of my “connection” with Vermont, the power plant in Vernon, and the refusal of by Vermont’s legislature to renew the plant’s license to operate, a segment on Varney & Company caught my ear.

On Monday Stuart Varney interviewed State Senator Peter Shumlin (D) Vermont, about the power plant license renewal.  A question asked by Mr. Varney was about what Vermont was going to do when the power plant was shutdown in 2012.  Where were they going to get their power?  Senator Shumlin’s answer was a little vague saying that they would buy some from Canada and encourage more renewable energy like solar, after all, “Germany was getting 30% of their power from solar energy”.

Well, after some research by Mr. Varney, and shared on Tuesday’s show, it was discovered that Germany’s solar power provides less than 1% of its power requirement, quite a difference, don’t you think.  Solar energy can help, but using it on a large scale is still quite a ways off, especially to replace 1/3 of the power requirements for Vermont now provided by the Vermont Yankee plant.  This kind of misstatement really hurts our cause and the lack of knowledge by people who are making these decisions is disconcerting to say the least.

I wish that politicians would concentrate on getting us a good, fair, and balanced energy policy, that will protect as well as efficiently utilize our resources and provide for alternative energies.  I want them to think, yes think hard about alternatives and consequences before they make a decision.  Maybe there should be more project managers running the country.  Risk management and contingency planning are part of our DNA.

In American English, “book it” can mean to accelerate or get going faster.

That’s the name we’ve chosen for this posting, although it has a double meaning here, connected with our actual upcoming book.

Well, it looks like our book, tentatively titled Green Project Management, has been formally announced by our publisher.  It’s got an ISBN number: 9781439830017, and you can find it at several sites such as CRC’s own site.

Talk about a keeping the project team motivated!  There’s nothing like seeing the end product already being promoted to drive the project team (the two of us writing the book) forward with vim, vigor, and vitality!

Actually, the reality of it all does indeed become a driver and we are finding many rich sources of information and potential partners the more we look into this subject.

We’re into it!  And we hope that you will be just as “into it” as the young reader above…

Rich and Dave

This is a whole feature on Project Management and the “Green Sector”.  Very good and recommended reading whether you’re interested in our interview or not!

Check it out HERE.