Third discussion of Silvious et al’s book on Project Management and Sustainability

Third discussion of Silvious et al’s book on Project Management and Sustainability

Sustainability in Project Management, 2012

Silvius, G.,Schipper, R., Planko, J., Brink, J., Kohler, A.

Gower Publishing Limited, Surry, England

 

Project management and Sustainability

Sivious et al provide a model for exploring sustainability and project management through context of the project within the chartering organization. I saw this as directly correlated to the power or authority of the project manager within the organization.  In other words, my ability to influence sustainability is related to my authority and my power. Although this may seem obvious, Sivious looked at project management processes, project management delivery, and project management life cycle among other concepts.

Let’s take an early project in my career where Bethlehem Steel built a new coal injection plant at the integrated steel plant in Burns Harbor IN. The Board of Directors authorized the new plant to reduce the cost of steel as well as reducing the environmental impact of the steel plant. The Coal Injection plant reduced the need for coke which was both dirty and expensive. From almost every perspective (profit, people and planet) this met the criteria of a sustainable project.  

Bethlehem assigned a project manager to execute the project. The project manager had a deliverable that was sustainable from an organizational context. The project manager also had authority and the power to design the facility and include sustainability within the design of the facility. What is the expected life cycle of the facility, how can I reduce energy usage, what are the most sustainable equipment specifications for this plant. These are major questions that will influence the project costs, operating costs and the sustainability of the project from the plant design and build project perspective.

Fluor was contracted to design and build the new plant based on the specifications developed by the plant project team. The sustainability of the deliverables of the Fluor Project Team was determined by the client’s specifications. The Fluor Team could and did make recommendations relative to the deliverables that would reduce cost, add durability and save time. These suggestions were approved or rejected by the Plant Project Manager. Again, the Plant Project Manager retained the power and authority over the sustainability of the project within this context.

The Fluor Team also explored how to design the plant maximizing the use of electronic files and reducing paper, recycling paper, reducing the need for air travel and various techniques and processes that could be labeled green or sustainable. This was another context for sustainability in project management. Within this context the project manager used the power and authority of the position to execute a green project.

The Project Management Institute and other professional project management institutions have not yet included a sustainability requirement within the code of ethics but I suspect it is coming. How we define sustainability and the role of the project manager will be important is defining the ethical obligations and we are not there yet. Sivious et al and others are providing some models that may encourage this conversation.

Russ

Sustainability as a Project Management Ethical Obligation

 

Sustainability as a Project Management Ethical Obligation

 

Sustainability in Project Management, 2012

Silvius, G.,Schipper, R., Planko, J., Brink, J., Kohler, A.

Gower Publishing Limited, Surry, England

 

I read and developed comments on Sustainability in Project Management, a book by Silvius, Schipper et al for the Global Sustainability Community within the Project management institute. I often take a very critical view of books on project management, challenging academicians to make their work relevant to practicing project managers and challenging project management writers to show the research or the data that backs up their assertions. Sustainability in Project Management has a good balance of research based information and practical implications for project manager.

 

The forwards in the book set the stage. Nelmara Abrex, Deputy Chief Executive at the Global Reporting Initiative provides context when discussing the earth as a provider of natural resources for the generation of wealth. A generator that regenerates itself until we extract more resources than the earth is able to regenerate. At this point we begin to denigrate resources and the capacity to regenerate.

 

All countries and all businesses plan to grow. It is a model based on unlimited resources and a model inconsistent with our reality. This is the business case for the book. If our current economic practices are unsustainable, how do we change?

 

Projects by their nature enable change. Projects will be on the leading edge of whatever our new models become. As project management moves from a focus on the technical deliverable of the project to understanding and meeting the business need of the project, the skills and methods for project managers will change. This change in focus is best reflected in the new revisions of the PMI Body of Knowledge. 

 

Sustainability in project management suggests that project managers must also be responsible for driving sustainability on their project. The authors provide a good review of the literature that indicates that businesses have begun a new sustainability paradigm and are making changes in their organizations and developing reporting that parallels financial reports on performance.

 

The authors argue that this makes good business sense. They also argue the project managers have an ethical obligation to plan and execute their project sustainability. The books explains what this means, but that is for a later blog. I am interested in the ethical obligation of the project manager within the context of sustainability.

 

While Director of Sustainability of a college I attended a Sustainability Conference at Furman University. Five university presidents, who had all signed the American College and University Presidents’ Commitment to Climate Change, http://www.presidentsclimatecommitment.org, made a compelling argument for the university’s role in creating a more sustainable economy. One speaker declared that government was too political to make significant changes and business was to short term focused. Universities were uniquely positioned because all teacher, lawyers, scientist, bankers and business people spend time at our campuses. He argued forcefully that University Presidents have an ethical obligation in lead in developing a new economic paradigm that respects the regenerative ability of the earth.

 

I believe there is a more compelling ethical argument that says project managers have an ethical obligation create a new project management paradigm that inculcates sustainability into purpose of every project. If this is true we have a lot of work to do to develop new methods, new tools and new skills.

Russ

 

Sustainability in Project Management

I had a dialog with my project management sustainability class and I provided the following and thought it might be of interest.

We are looking at sustainability from TWO perspectives in our program. Although sustainability refers to the long term viability in both uses of the term sustainability, two different concerns have emerged and we are addressing both of these concerns in our courses.

1. Project Management/ Stakeholder Management

I was on a PMI committee in the 1980s that was developing what became the 1st edition of the PMBOK. This was a revision of the all the earlier work into one document. I wrote a definition of project management that focused on the satisfaction of the client. The debate at the time was where project success was defined by meeting project specifications (time, cost, quality) or by client satisfaction. Project management at that time was dominated by the engineering profession and focused more on meeting specification. Today, the focused is more on meeting client satisfaction.

For a project to be deemed successful the deliverable of the project MUST meet more than the specifications and meet the long term business need that created the need for the project. This focus on the long term business need is called sustainability although you will not find this word in the glossary of index of the PMBOK. What you will find is a greater emphasis on meeting client long term goals or business goals. especially in the newest edition of the PMBOK. This is the emphasis discussed by our authors (Goleman, Pinto... ) in portfolio management.

2. Sustainability/ saving the planet

A second use of the word sustainability focuses on sustaining the earth. There is a general consensus among scientist (environmental, physicists, climatologist, anthropologist, social scientist, etc) that the carbon based economy and population growth will place so much stress on the earth's ecology that the earth will not be able to regenerate and that changes will occur in the earth's environment that will make human habitation difficult and maybe impossible.

Governments, social institutions and economic entities are all developing the means and methods to operate effectively while reducing their carbon footprint. http://www.carbontrust.com/client-services/footprinting/footprint-measurement

Each of these entities are investing in projects to reduce carbon impact on the environment and human life. Project managers must understand the business drivers of their project sponsor. Although governments, social entities (such as the Rocky Mountain Institute) and economic entities may have different motivations for focusing on sustainability, the project manager must discern and manage the project to maximize the project sponsor’s needs.

This also means we are ethically obligated to manage our projects to meet our client’s business needs and to manage the project in such a way as to minimize the project’s carbon footprint both in the lifespan or the project and the lifespan of the organization.
I am interested in your thoughts.

Russ