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TRANSCRIPT
PM N
ETWO
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ARC
H 2015, V
OLU
ME 29, N
UM
BER 3TH
E PRO
JECTS BEH
IND
THE C
ITIES OF TH
E FUTU
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MAKING PROJECT MANAGEMENT INDISPENSABLE FOR BUSINESS RESULTS.®
PMNetwork®MARCH 2015 VOLUME 29, NUMBER 3
NUCLEAR PROJECTS MAKE A COMEBACK PAGE 6
AVOID IMPOSED DEADLINE SYNDROME PAGE 29
HOW YOUNG PROJECT MANAGERS BREAK INTO THE FIELD PAGE 52
PAGE 30
THE PROJECTS BEHIND THE
PAGE 30
CITIES OF THE FUTURE
PMN0315 Cover-Final.indd 1 2/5/15 11:23 AM
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8018a_Q1-Q2 2015 PM Campaign_printad_F2.indd 1 1/14/15 1:25 PMPMN0315 Cover-Final.indd 2 2/5/15 10:26 AM
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FeaturesRethinking CitiesWith the global challenge of a booming urban population comes the opportunity to create more advanced cities. By Emma Haak
Technical Know-HowA smart robot builds an innovative structure—with the help of the project team behind it.By Meredith Landry
Passion ProjectsWhether startups or not-for-profi ts, resource-strapped organizations can benefi t from familiar—and not-so-familiar—project management approaches. By Steve Hendershot
Starting Out RightEarly-career project practitioners share their stories of breaking into the fi eld, and succeeding in it.By Rachel Bertsche
An Island Unto ItselfA French project team manages competing currents—of water and stakeholder concerns—to restore Mont-Saint-Michel’s maritime character.By Matt Alderton
MARCH 2015 | VOLUME 29, NUMBER 3
PMN0315 A-Front.indd 1 2/5/15 11:26 AM
4-Day Classroom Boot Camp PrepOnline/e-Learning PrepVirtual Instructor-Led Classroom PrepCorporate/Group Training & Discounts
PMI, the PMI Logo, the PMI RegisteredEducation Provider Logo, PMP and PMBOK are
marks of Project Management Institute, Inc
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FREE PMP exam eligibility advice, exam application preparation tool & application review
FREE 60 PDUs after you pass the exam! Renew your PMP certification for free!
45,000+ successful PMP certificants agree our courses & expert instructors are the best!
FREE 35 contact hours course included! America’s most proven bootcamp for 10 years!
This course is designed as a 4-day class where students can take the exam on the 5th day.
Visit www.4PMTI.com for further details. Subject to meeting other requirements set by PMI.
* We guarantee that you will pass the PMP exam within your first three attempts or we will return
your money per following terms: if you fail, we will pay your re-exam fees and provide additional
coaching up to two times. If you fail a 3rd time, we will refund your course fees less re-exam fees.
Based on results reported by 100% of our customers since 2003, 95% of our students pass the
on 1st attempt and 98% pass on the 2nd attempt. Visit www.4PMTI.com/MoneyBack.exam
Global Head Quarters: 29777 Telegraph Road, Suite 2120, Southfield, MI - 48375 (USA)
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Thank you!!!! I did not have to go thru several books and simulations exams to get my PMP certification. Your material and instructor was really what I needed.!
- Dyana Torquato
This is a fabulous boot camp and I was very impressed with the instructor. I could go on and on about your instructor because I honestly feel that the delivery of the PMTI course makes a huge difference in the success of the students. I'm going to recommend my employer use PMTI for any corporate PMP exam boot camps they think about hosting!
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Pass In 5 Days or Your Money Back*!
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PMN0315 A-Front.indd 2 2/5/15 10:39 AM
DOWNLOAD THE PM NETWORK APP and read the magazine on your iPad, iPhone or iPod Touch, or Android device.
AlsoMARCH 2015 | VOLUME 29, NUMBER 3
MAKING PROJECT MANAGEMENT INDISPENSABLE FOR BUSINESS RESULTS.®
THE EDGE
6 Reactor Revival Four years after Fukushima, nuclear reactor projects return. 8 A New Way to Make Art To help disabled children create 3-D art, a U.K. project turned to touch-screen and eye-tracking technologies.
9 On the Verge of Virtual Virtual reality projects
could usher in the future of journalism.
11 China’s New Stimulus Program The country looks to
infrastructure and energy projects to mitigate a housing slump.
11 Defense Giant Diversifies The world’s largest defense company responds to U.S. budget cuts by branching out.
12 Old Infrastructure, New Life These urban projects have
revitalized unused and underused city spaces.
14 Data Under Lock and Key To protect their virtual
treasures, data centers bulk up their physical security.
16 Metrics CEOs around the world face
daunting technology and talent challenges. If they want their portfolios to succeed, the current climate demands they prepare for change.
VOICES
18 Inside Track Patrolling the Skies Col. Reid Vander Schaaf, PhD,
sensors development project manager, U.S. Department of Defense, Huntsville, Alabama, USA
20 Project Toolkit Under Pressure
24 In the Trenches Smooth Operator By Deepa Gandhavalli Ramaniah, PMP
28 In the Trenches You Get the Picture By Rhonda Wilson Oshetoye,
PMP, and Laurence Cook, PMP
70 In the Trenches Blame Game By Grace Willis, PMP
COLUMNISTS
22 Career Q&A Concrete Connections By Lindsay Scott
26 Managing Relationships Facing Fears By Sheilina Somani, RPP,
FAPM, PMP, Contributing Editor
27 Leadership Rush Hour By Ricardo Viana Vargas,
PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PMP
29 The Business of Projects Imposed Deadline Syndrome By Gary R. Heerkens, MBA,
CBM, PMP, Contributing Editor
ALSO IN THIS ISSUE
68 Marketplace The Evolution and Maturity of PM
71 Directory of Services Project management
resources
72 Closing Credit London’s greenest bridge
6
14
28
72
PMNetwork ®
4-Day Classroom Boot Camp PrepOnline/e-Learning PrepVirtual Instructor-Led Classroom PrepCorporate/Group Training & Discounts
PMI, the PMI Logo, the PMI RegisteredEducation Provider Logo, PMP and PMBOK are
marks of Project Management Institute, Inc
Try FREE 200 question exam prep test at:
http://www.4PMTI.com/Free_200_PMP_Questions
4PMTI.com/SocialMedia
FREE PMP exam eligibility advice, exam application preparation tool & application review
FREE 60 PDUs after you pass the exam! Renew your PMP certification for free!
45,000+ successful PMP certificants agree our courses & expert instructors are the best!
FREE 35 contact hours course included! America’s most proven bootcamp for 10 years!
This course is designed as a 4-day class where students can take the exam on the 5th day.
Visit www.4PMTI.com for further details. Subject to meeting other requirements set by PMI.
* We guarantee that you will pass the PMP exam within your first three attempts or we will return
your money per following terms: if you fail, we will pay your re-exam fees and provide additional
coaching up to two times. If you fail a 3rd time, we will refund your course fees less re-exam fees.
Based on results reported by 100% of our customers since 2003, 95% of our students pass the
on 1st attempt and 98% pass on the 2nd attempt. Visit www.4PMTI.com/MoneyBack.exam
Global Head Quarters: 29777 Telegraph Road, Suite 2120, Southfield, MI - 48375 (USA)
(PMTI)
Middle-East
Singapore
Atlanta Boston Chicago Columbia Detroit Fairfax
Houston Los Angeles New Jersey New York Raleigh San Jose
San Diego San Francisco Seattle Tampa Washington DC 100+ cities...
Dallas Denver
Calgary Edmonton Montreal Toronto and more....
Bangalore Chennai Delhi/Gurgaon Mumbai/PuneKolkata Hyderabad
Dubai Saudi Arabia
Singapore
Phone: 734-786-0104 Fax: 248-809-4060
Email: [email protected] Web: www.4PMTI.com
Thank you!!!! I did not have to go thru several books and simulations exams to get my PMP certification. Your material and instructor was really what I needed.!
- Dyana Torquato
This is a fabulous boot camp and I was very impressed with the instructor. I could go on and on about your instructor because I honestly feel that the delivery of the PMTI course makes a huge difference in the success of the students. I'm going to recommend my employer use PMTI for any corporate PMP exam boot camps they think about hosting!
- Jennifer Sebastian
Pass In 5 Days or Your Money Back*!
PMTI 4-Day PMP Exam Prep Boot Camp (100% Money-Back Guarantee)
**PMTI 10 Anniversary OfferSpecial $405 Off!!
**Visit www.4PMTI.com for details
Trusted instructors and class materials that receive five star praise!
GS-02F-0056T
Schedule
th
**
**
®
COVER IMAGE COURTESY OF LAVA
PMN0315 A-Front.indd 3 2/5/15 11:32 AM
THE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE
PUBLICATION & MEMBERSHIPPM Net work (ISSN 1040-8754) is pub lished month ly by the Proj ect Man age ment In sti tute. PM Net work is printed in the USA by Quad Graphics, Sussex, Wisconsin. Pe ri od i cal post age paid at Newtown Square, PA 19073-3299 and at ad di tion al mail ing of fic es. Canadian agreement #40030957. Post mas ter: Send ad dress chang es to PM Net work, 14 Campus Boulevard, New-town Square, PA 19073-3299 USA. Phone +1 610 356 4600, fax +1 610 482 9971.
The mission of PM Net work is to facilitate the exchange of information among professionals in the fields of project, program and portfolio management, provide them with practical tools and techniques, and serve as a forum for discussion of emerging trends and issues. All articles in PM Net work are the views of the au thors and are not nec es sar i ly those of PMI.
Sub scrip tion rate for mem bers is US$42/year and is in clud ed in the an nu al dues. PMI is a non prof it pro fes sion al or gan iza tion ded i cat ed to ad vanc ing the state of the art of proj ect man-age ment. Mem ber ship in PMI is open to all at an an nu al dues rate of US$129. For in for ma tion on PMI pro grams and mem ber ship, or to re port change of ad dress or prob lems with your sub scrip tion, con tact:
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PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT #40030957Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: Circulation Department / P.O. Box 1051 / Fort Erie, Ontario L2A 6C7
© 2015 Project Management Institute Inc. All rights reserved.All rights reserved. “PMI,” the PMI logo, “Making project management indispen sable for business results,” “PMI Today,” “PM Network,” “Project Management Journal,” “PMBOK,” “CAPM,” “Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM),” “PMP,” the PMP logo, “PgMP,” “Program Management Professional (PgMP),” “PMI-RMP,” “PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP),” ”PMI-SP,” “PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP),” “OPM3” and “PMI-ACP,” “PMI Agile Certified Practitio-ner (PMI-ACP)” are registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc. “Project Management Professional (PMP)” is a service mark of Project Management Institute, Inc. in the United States and/or other nations.
PM Network welcomes story ideas and/or suggestions about sources. Our stories are written by professional journalists. Please contact Imagination editorial director Cyndee Miller or PMI editor in chief Dan Goldfischer with your ideas and suggestions. If you are interested in submitting articles for the PMI Knowledge Shelf, located at www.PMI.org/Knowledge-Center/Knowledge-Shelf.aspx, please contact Dan Goldfischer. More information can be found at www.PMI.org/en/Knowledge-Center/Publications-PM-Network.aspx. Published articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the magazine or the Project Management Institute. PM Network is not responsible for loss, damage, or any other injury to unsolicited manuscripts or other material.
DIGITAL EDITIONA digital edition of this issue is available to PMI members by logging on to www.PMI.org and select-ing Knowledge Center, PM Network and Access the Full PM Network. The digital edition of PM Net-work is also accessible on Android devices, iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, via the PM Network app.
READER SERVICESFor placing orders or for inquiries, please contact PMI Publishing Department at [email protected]. Permissions. Please visit www.PMI.org/Home-Permissions.aspx for information on requesting per-mission to reprint articles published in PM Network. No part of PM Network may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ ing photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.Back Issues. Back issues may be purchased when available by contacting [email protected]. Pricing varies with number of copies, and members receive a discount.PDF Files. Articles in PDF format are available for download from the Marketplace at www.PMI.org at no cost to members. Non-member price for all articles is US$15 each.Glossy Reprints. Requests for glossy reprints of articles in quantities of 100 or more can be sent to [email protected] Copies of Current Issue. Copies of the current PM Network can be obtained in quantities of 25 or more. Orders must be placed 40 days prior to date of issue. The cost is US$5.50 per copy plus shipping.Change of Address. Members can edit their demographics, including their addresses, by logging onto www.PMI.org and accessing “My PMI.” All readers can send change of address information to [email protected] or call PMI customer service at +1 610 356 4600 option 8.
PMI STAFFVice President, Brand ManagementCindy W. Anderson; [email protected]
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CONTRIBUTING EDITORSJesse Fewell, CST, PMI-ACP, PMP, LeadingAgileGary R. Heerkens, MBA, CBM, PMP, Management Solutions Group Inc.Sheilina Somani, FAPM, RPP, PMP, Positively Project Management
2015 PMI BOARD OF DIRECTORSChair Steve DelGrosso, MSc, PMP+1 919 848 6986, [email protected]
Vice Chair Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez, PMP+32 479 80 94 18, [email protected]
Secretary-Treasurer and Chair, Audit and Performance Oversight Committee Mark Dickson, MBA, FAICD, PMP+61 407 933 110, [email protected]
Chair, Strategy Development Oversight Committee Deena Gordon Parla, PMP+90 533 511 4462, [email protected]
DIRECTORSMargareth Carneiro, MBA, MSc, PMP+55 61 8175 3455, [email protected]. Davidson Frame, PhD, PMP, PMI Fellow+1 703 623 0035, [email protected]
Todd Hutchison, MCom, MBA, PMP+61 422 532 775, [email protected]
Victoria S. Kumar, MM, PMP+1 919 924 1013, [email protected]
Caterina (Cathy) La Tona, BCS, PMP, PfMP+1 248 703 9810, [email protected]
Wagner Maxsen Jose de Oliveria, PMI-RMP, PMP+45 21247673, [email protected]
William “Steve” Sawle, PE, CMC, PMP, PgMP+1 312 209 5512, [email protected]
Jennifer Tharp, PMP+1 415 385 1749, [email protected]
Ricardo Triana, PMP, Immediate Past Chair+1 305 778 9091, [email protected]
Cheryl J. (CJ) Walker Waite, PhD, PMP+1 206 774 0774, [email protected]
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STAFF EXECUTIVE
President & Chief Executive OfficerMark A. Langley +1 610 356 4600, [email protected]
PMNetwork ®
PMN0315 A-Front.indd 4 2/5/15 10:39 AM
THE PROFESSIONAL MAGAZINE OF THE PROJECT MANAGEMENT INSTITUTE
PUBLICATION & MEMBERSHIPPM Net work (ISSN 1040-8754) is pub lished month ly by the Proj ect Man age ment In sti tute. PM Net work is printed in the USA by Quad Graphics, Sussex, Wisconsin. Pe ri od i cal post age paid at Newtown Square, PA 19073-3299 and at ad di tion al mail ing of fic es. Canadian agreement #40030957. Post mas ter: Send ad dress chang es to PM Net work, 14 Campus Boulevard, New-town Square, PA 19073-3299 USA. Phone +1 610 356 4600, fax +1 610 482 9971.
The mission of PM Net work is to facilitate the exchange of information among professionals in the fields of project, program and portfolio management, provide them with practical tools and techniques, and serve as a forum for discussion of emerging trends and issues. All articles in PM Net work are the views of the au thors and are not nec es sar i ly those of PMI.
Sub scrip tion rate for mem bers is US$42/year and is in clud ed in the an nu al dues. PMI is a non prof it pro fes sion al or gan iza tion ded i cat ed to ad vanc ing the state of the art of proj ect man-age ment. Mem ber ship in PMI is open to all at an an nu al dues rate of US$129. For in for ma tion on PMI pro grams and mem ber ship, or to re port change of ad dress or prob lems with your sub scrip tion, con tact:
PROJ ECT MAN AGE MENT IN STI TUTE14 Campus Boulevard / Newtown Square, PA 19073-3299 USATel +1 610 356 4600; Fax +1 610 482 9971E-mail: [email protected]: 1 855 746 4849 (United States) / 1 855 746 4849 (Canada) / 1 800 563 0665 (Mexico)
PMI Asia Pacific Service CentreSingapore Tel: +65 6496 5501 / E-mail: [email protected]
PMI Europe-Middle East-Africa (EMEA) Service Centre Lelystad, Netherlands Tel: +31 320 239 539 / E-mail: [email protected]
Toll-free Numbers00 800 7464 8490: Austria, Belgium*, Bulgaria*, Czech Republic*, Denmark, Estonia*, Finland, France, Germany, Hungary, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia*, Lithuania*, Luxembourg, Malta*, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Slovak Republic*, Slovenia*, Spain, Sweden*, Switzer-land, United Kingdom, Vatican City00 800 4414 3100: Cyprus, Greece07 810 800 7464 8490: Russia*+31 320 239 539 (toll number): Andorra, Belarus, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Moldova, Monaco, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro, Ukraine
*Use the toll number (+31 320 239 539) from mobile phones in these countries
PMI India Service CentreNew Delhi, IndiaTel: +91 124 4517140 / E-mail: [email protected]
OTHER LOCATIONSBeijing, China; Bengaluru, India; Brussels, Belgium; Buenos Aires, Argentina; Dubai, United Arab Emirates; Mumbai, India; Porto Alegre, Brazil; Rio de Janeiro, Brazil; Shenzhen, China; Washington, D.C., USA See www.PMI.org/AboutUs/Customer-Care.aspx for contact details.
PUBLICATIONS MAIL AGREEMENT #40030957Return Undeliverable Canadian Addresses to: Circulation Department / P.O. Box 1051 / Fort Erie, Ontario L2A 6C7
© 2015 Project Management Institute Inc. All rights reserved.All rights reserved. “PMI,” the PMI logo, “Making project management indispen sable for business results,” “PMI Today,” “PM Network,” “Project Management Journal,” “PMBOK,” “CAPM,” “Certified Associate in Project Management (CAPM),” “PMP,” the PMP logo, “PgMP,” “Program Management Professional (PgMP),” “PMI-RMP,” “PMI Risk Management Professional (PMI-RMP),” ”PMI-SP,” “PMI Scheduling Professional (PMI-SP),” “OPM3” and “PMI-ACP,” “PMI Agile Certified Practitio-ner (PMI-ACP)” are registered marks of Project Management Institute, Inc. “Project Management Professional (PMP)” is a service mark of Project Management Institute, Inc. in the United States and/or other nations.
PM Network welcomes story ideas and/or suggestions about sources. Our stories are written by professional journalists. Please contact Imagination editorial director Cyndee Miller or PMI editor in chief Dan Goldfischer with your ideas and suggestions. If you are interested in submitting articles for the PMI Knowledge Shelf, located at www.PMI.org/Knowledge-Center/Knowledge-Shelf.aspx, please contact Dan Goldfischer. More information can be found at www.PMI.org/en/Knowledge-Center/Publications-PM-Network.aspx. Published articles do not necessarily reflect the views of the magazine or the Project Management Institute. PM Network is not responsible for loss, damage, or any other injury to unsolicited manuscripts or other material.
DIGITAL EDITIONA digital edition of this issue is available to PMI members by logging on to www.PMI.org and select-ing Knowledge Center, PM Network and Access the Full PM Network. The digital edition of PM Net-work is also accessible on Android devices, iPad, iPhone and iPod Touch, via the PM Network app.
READER SERVICESFor placing orders or for inquiries, please contact PMI Publishing Department at [email protected]. Permissions. Please visit www.PMI.org/Home-Permissions.aspx for information on requesting per-mission to reprint articles published in PM Network. No part of PM Network may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, includ ing photocopy, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without written permission from the publisher.Back Issues. Back issues may be purchased when available by contacting [email protected]. Pricing varies with number of copies, and members receive a discount.PDF Files. Articles in PDF format are available for download from the Marketplace at www.PMI.org at no cost to members. Non-member price for all articles is US$15 each.Glossy Reprints. Requests for glossy reprints of articles in quantities of 100 or more can be sent to [email protected] Copies of Current Issue. Copies of the current PM Network can be obtained in quantities of 25 or more. Orders must be placed 40 days prior to date of issue. The cost is US$5.50 per copy plus shipping.Change of Address. Members can edit their demographics, including their addresses, by logging onto www.PMI.org and accessing “My PMI.” All readers can send change of address information to [email protected] or call PMI customer service at +1 610 356 4600 option 8.
PMN0315 A-Front.indd 5 2/5/15 10:39 AM
6 PM NETWORK MARCH 2015 WWW.PMI.ORG
70 Number of reactor construction
projects now underway worldwide
US$135 billion Value of reactor projects delayed or canceled after
the 2011 Fukushima meltdown in Japan
60%Estimated increase in global nuclear
generation capacity by 2040
theEd geA police officer guards the construction site of the Sanmen Nuclear Power Plant in Sanmen, Zhejiang Province, China.
Sources: Bloomberg New Energy Finance, International Energy Agency
PHO
TO B
Y FE
NG
LI/
GET
TY IM
AGES
PMN0315 A-Front.indd 6 2/5/15 10:39 AM
MARCH 2015 PM NETWORK 7
Reactor RevivalFour years after the Fukushima meltdown caused Japan to close all 48 of its nuclear plants and prompted Germany to pledge to shut down its 17 plants by 2022, nuclear projects are making a comeback. Yet, in the wake of Fukushima, the project teams overseeing new reactors must navigate heightened safety concerns and complex technology amid increased public interest and, at times, opposition.
After Fukushima, 24 reactor projects around the world, representing over US$135 billion, were postponed or canceled. Now 70 reactor construction projects are underway worldwide, the most since 1989, according to Bloom-berg New Energy Finance. By 2040, nuclear generation capacity will increase 60 percent globally, the International Energy Agency estimates.
The Asia Pacific region, especially China and India, is home to nearly two-thirds of the reactors under construction. China plans to complete 29 new reactors from 2018 through 2030, raising its total to 49, according to Bloomberg. China’s increased nuclear capacity will exceed the current capacity of the United States and Russia combined.
“We see most of the construction in the growing economies, in the parts of the world where you see strong economic growth,” Agneta Rising, the head of the World Nuclear Associa-tion, told Bloomberg.
Meanwhile, nine of the new reactors, or 13 percent of the total, are going up in developed countries. For the first time in more than 30 years, new nuclear plant projects are underway in the United States, with four due to come online by 2020. In September, the U.S. Depart-ment of Energy announced it would provide up to US$12.6 billion in loan guarantees to nuclear projects that reduce green-house gas emissions.
Still, these initiatives face sometimes fierce opposition from public stakeholders. The Japanese government sees nuclear power as critical to the country’s growth, as it now relies mostly on imported natural gas and coal for its power. However, in late 2014, when Japan announced it would restart two nuclear reactors, hundreds of citizens protested.
“Gaining local residents’ understanding is very important,” Yoichi Miyazawa, Japan’s minister of economy, trade and industry, told The Associated Press. In advance of launching projects to bring the two reac-tors back online, government officials have held explanatory meetings with local residents.
theEd ge“We see most of the construction in the growing economies, in the parts of the world where you see strong economic growth.”—Agneta Rising, World Nuclear Association, to Bloomberg
PMN0315 A-Front.indd 7 2/5/15 10:39 AM
8 PM NETWORK MARCH 2015 WWW.PMI.ORG
A Better BreedThe new wave of reactors looks to improve upon the old, especially when it comes to safety.
In 2013, the U.S. Department of Energy launched a five-year, US$452 million program to create first-of-their-kind small modular reactors. They’ll not only be one-third the size of current nuclear plants but also will aim to be cheaper, faster to build and safer than conven-tional reactors.
Last year, Russia and China announced their intention to pursue a joint project that will build six nuclear reactors floating on barges, supplying power to remote villages and oil platforms. Placed in deep ocean waters, floating nuclear plants should be safer because they’ll be less sus-ceptible to tsunamis or earthquakes, and in a worst-case meltdown scenario, they would be cooled by the surrounding waters, according to Jacopo Buongiorno, PhD, a professor at the Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA.
“The biggest selling point [of floating reactors] is the enhanced safety,” Dr. Buongiorno, who is researching and designing waterborne nuclear plants, said in a statement.
In France, an international consortium is executing the estimated US$20 billion ITER project, which will be the world’s largest nuclear fusion reactor. It won’t generate as much long-lasting radio-active waste as typical nuclear fission plants, and will be incapable of a meltdown. Seven state spon-sors—China, the European Union, India, Japan, Korea, Russia and the United States—are contributing to the project, with the understanding that each member will have access to the technology needed to
theEdge
A NEW WAY TO MAKE ART3-D printing isn’t just for businesses. To allow its students with disabilities to harness their creative instincts, the Victoria Educa-tion Centre (VEC) in Poole, England partially sponsored the €1.7 million SHIVA project. (SHIVA stands for Sculpture for Health-care: Interaction and Virtual Art in 3D.) In 2010, VEC began collaborating with the National Centre for Computer Animation at Bournemouth University in England to find a way for children with limited mobility and dexterity to cre-ate three-dimensional objects. The result is a new high-tech tool that links eye-tracking and touch-screen technologies to a 3-D printer to make students’ designs tangible.
“Children with disabilities find it very difficult to do art in a conventional sense,” said Mark Moseley, assistive technologist, VEC, and the technical lead on the project, in a video on The Telegraph website. “I thought this would be a great oppor-tunity to develop a piece of software that would allow them to have these artistic experi-ences, but in a virtual sense, using technology that can compensate for whatever it is that they’re not able to do.”
The eye-tracking technol-ogy translates a student’s gaze into on-screen selections that build an object from differ-ent shapes. Users with visual impairments can customize display colors and sizes. User preferences can be saved for future use. —Brittany Nims
The Future of NuclearBy 2030, these countries will build the most new nuclear reactors worldwide.
COUNTRY REACTORS UNDER CONSTRUCTION REACTORS PLANNED
China 26 60
Russia 10 31
India 6 22
South Korea 5 8
Japan 3 9
United States 5 5
World 70 179
Source: World Nuclear Association, 2014
The ITER fusion reactor project site in April 2014, in Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, France
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produce its own nuclear fusion plant in the future. “Coordinating so many different countries,
cultures and locations is a bigger challenge even than the technology,” says Joseph Onstott, ITER’s budget management section leader, Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, France. “Not everyone has the same objective: Some want things done as quickly as possible; others are more cost-conscious. It takes a lot of discipline to oversee the schedule.”
Costly ClosingsAs dozens of new nuclear reactors get built, hun-dreds of aging reactors will be decommissioned.
“Coordinating so many different countries, cultures and locations is a bigger challenge even than the technology. Not everyone has the same objective.”
—Joseph Onstott, ITER, Saint-Paul-lès-Durance, France, commenting on a project to build the world’s largest fusion reactor, a project with seven country sponsors
ON THE VERGE OF VIRTUALInnovative journalism projects are looking to provide the news through a technology known more for its video-game applications: virtual reality. The objective of these projects isn’t to entertain, however, but to inform.
The Gannett Company, one of the largest media organizations in the United States, launched its first project in June to create a virtual-reality news story. For the three-month US$20,000 initiative, the organi-zation’s digital team partnered with a Gannett newspaper, The Des Moines Register, to develop an immer-sive 3-D version of a family farm in the U.S. state of Iowa. It was part of a larger story about changes in Iowa agriculture.
“This is the way we, as journalists, are going to need to communicate to the Minecraft generation,” Mitch Gelman, vice president, Gannett Company, Washington, D.C., USA, told Poynter. “Instead of building fictional representations in this type of game play, we should be able to build factual non-fiction.”
Russia and China are pursuing a joint project to build nuclear reactors floating on barges.
Almost half of the 434 nuclear reactors cur-rently operating—most of them in Europe, Japan, Russia and the United States—are slated to be decommissioned by 2040, at an estimated cost of over US$100 billion, if not much more. The bud-get for decommissioning projects involving just two reactors in the U.S. state of California, set to launch in 2016, will come to US$4.4 billion.
Teams overseeing these complex initiatives will have to negotiate uncertainty around costs, given the relatively limited global track record of dis-mantling and decontaminating reactors. In the past 40 years, only 10 reactors have been shut down. —Kate Sykes
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Another initiative, Project Syria, uses audio, video and photos taken during the Syrian civil war, along with virtual-reality headsets, to create an immersive look at the wartime experiences of children. Funded by the World Economic Forum, the 2014 project was spearheaded by Nonny de la Peña, a graduate fellow at the University of Southern California and a pioneer in immersive journalism.
“Advances in immersive three-dimensional experiences will make traditional, static two-dimensional photos and videos look as old-fash-ioned to us as the very first black-and-white photos seem to us today,” Dan Pacheco, a journalism pro-fessor at Syracuse University, Syracuse, New York, USA and a consultant on the Gannett project, told the Syracuse Media Group.
On the FarmVirtual reality may represent the future of journal-ism, but only if pilot projects like Gannett’s prove successful. For Gannett and its project partners, success meant creating a self-guided 3-D walking tour that would be viewed with Oculus Rift, a vir-tual-reality headset that responds to users’ move-ments, as well as a simpler 2-D version that would live online. Yet success also meant more than a flashy presentation.
“We wanted strong storytelling behind it,” says Amalie Nash, executive editor and vice president for news and engagement, The Des Moines Register,
Des Moines, Iowa, USA. “In a lot of ways, we tack-led it the same as any journalism project: There was a lot of reporting, interviewing, data gathering and photography.”
In addition to those typical project components, however, Ms. Nash’s team—reporters, editors and photographers—had to work closely with stake-holders outside its own newsroom: the develop-ers at Gannett’s Virginia-based digital division as well as Total Cinema 360, the New York-based film company that recorded both video and audio in 360 degrees. Team members at both Gannett offices had twice-weekly phone meetings to main-tain consistent communications and to coordinate the project elements on every platform: virtual, online and print.
“There was a lot of back and forth between our team and the team at Gannett Digital,” Ms. Nash says. “That was the most important thing to pull this off.”
The virtual reality technique also brought unique challenges. One concern was some users who experienced nausea from the use of the headset. Another project challenge, Ms. Nash explains, involved the sheer amount and intricacy of the photographs her team needed to take so that the digital team could build the virtual environment. “Our photographer had to take these extreme detail shots,” she says. “What exactly does that barn look like? The grass over by the porch? In a traditional journalism project, the photographer is
not taking a million pictures of cracks in the sidewalk.”
After the Des Moines team completed its initial fact-finding, reporting and photo-graphing, it sent its data and photos to the digital team to create a prototype. Then, in July, all of the team members, from both Iowa and Virginia, visited the farm. They needed to test the prototype, and to do that, they needed input from key stakeholders: the family that owned the farm.
“We had the family put the headset on, and they said, ‘The hay bales are way too
theEdge
“In a lot of ways, we tackled it
the same as any journalism project: There
was a lot of reporting,
interviewing, data
gathering and photography.”
—Amalie Nash, The Des Moines Register, Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Project Syria team members created an immersive look at children’s wartime experiences.
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big,’” Ms. Nash says. “We had to focus more on proportion and measuring the way that the virtual world looked.”
After incorporating the family’s feedback, the project team finalized its digital rep-lica of the farm. The project allows users to virtually walk around the farm through 360-degree video segments, archival photos and text. “It has a museum-like quality where you can go around and explore,” Ms. Nash says.
The project’s success also could be measured through its online presence: It resulted in 430,000 page views. “That’s a very high number for us in engagement,” says Ms. Nash, whose publication has a combined print and online readership of 420,000.
“I think we’ll be seeing more of these projects in newsrooms,” Ms. Nash says. “It’s very exciting to see different ways to tell stories and what that might look like in the future.” —Rebecca Little
China’s New Stimulus Program Housing has been both China’s boon and its bane. While the housing sector helped the world’s second largest economy recover quickly from the global financial crisis, in the past year it has helped drag down economic growth to its slowest pace since 2009.
“The linchpin of China’s economy is the housing market,” Alaistair Chan, an econo-mist at Moody’s Analytics, told The Wall Street Journal.
The government’s recession-era stimulus measures helped the housing sector grow mightily—and unsustainably. Due to an oversupply of overpriced houses, housing sales, prices and construction have all dropped sharply. Cities such as Handan, where prop-erty prices shot up 24 percent in the past four years, have become home to abandoned real-estate projects. That’s having a major impact on the rest of the economy—20 per-cent of which is tied to real estate.
The government is responding: The infrastructure and energy sectors are seeing a surge in projects—and in the need for greater project management maturity.
A brief history of virtual-reality projects:
1957: Morton Heilig invents the Sensora-ma, a machine that played 3-D images and stereo sounds as well as emitted smells.
1961: Philco Corp. develops the Head-sight, the first head-mounted display—a technology later used in military training.
DEFENSE GIANT DIVERSIFIESWith U.S. defense spending in decline, at least as a percentage of GDP, the world’s largest defense company is pursuing projects with civilian applications in an effort to shore up its future. More than 60 percent of Lockheed Martin Corp.’s US$45 billion in 2013 sales came through Pentagon contracts.
Several of Lockheed’s current research projects, like the patented Perforene membrane, could gener-ate commercial interest around the world. It’s a one-atom thick sheet of graphene that can be used to desali-nate seawater. The product could interest Persian Gulf nations, who might also order some of the orga-nization’s weapons systems. More surprisingly, Lockheed Martin has partnered with Kampachi Farms LLC and the Illinois Soybean Association to develop fish farm pens that will drift on open-ocean currents and be tracked by satellites.
Lockheed Martin is also develop-ing a compact nuclear fusion reactor that might initially power naval ships but could be expanded for commercial use by cities. “Should the [technology] develop, that can result in a very large commercial market,” Ray Johnson, Lockheed Martin’s chief technology officer, told The Wall Street Journal.
This isn’t the first time Lockheed Martin has tried to diversify its project portfolio to hedge against military cuts. In the 1990s, the orga-nization stepped into the telecom-munications market by buying three satellite operators. It sold them at a steep loss in 2001. The company says its focus on global issues like energy, food and water this time around will act as a safeguard. —Brittany Nims
THE REALITY OF VIRTUAL
1991: Virtuality Group adds virtual reality to video arcade games.
1997: Georgia Tech researchers use virtual reality to design war-zone scenarios for use as therapy for veterans.
2014: Facebook acquires Oculus VR, the company that makes the Rift, for US$2 billion.
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theEdgeGetting Out of the HouseThe Chinese government has not yet introduced a stimulus package like the CNY4 trillion program of 2008, but it has set in motion more targeted stimulus initiatives.
In late 2014, China announced it would invest CNY693 billion in 21 infrastructure projects: 16 railways and five airports. Earlier, it approved a CNY800 billion investment in 64 rail projects. Meanwhile, nine provincial and two city governments have launched new construction and infra-structure projects worth over CNY3 trillion.
These infrastructure investments could help stabilize China’s economy, Lian Ping, chief economist for the Bank of Communications, told the Xinhua News Agency. “Most railway and airport projects are quite necessary in the country, and they are also important to the local economies,” he said.
Like the construction sector, China’s coal sector has fallen into severe distress, propelled by weakening growth in electricity demand that, in 2014, fell to its low-est levels since the global economic crisis. Yet as the government looks to boost the country’s use of renewable energy, other energy sectors show clear signs of growth. For example, the country—the world’s largest solar market—planned to install 8 gigawatts of small solar power systems in 2014, which is more than 10 times the 2013 figure. It aims to install 15 gigawatts of photovoltaic power in 2015.
Beyond the SlowdownDespite the current slowdown, China will continue to see an active project landscape, says Henry Hsieh, a Shanghai-based vice president and general manager for Fluor, which has more than a dozen Chinese projects underway in sectors such as oil and gas, manufacturing, pharmaceuticals
China will invest
CNY693 billion in 21 infrastruc-ture projects: 16 railways
and five airports.
River WalkMoscow, Russia is far from a pedestrian paradise: Foot traffic is largely channeled into the city’s hundreds of underground crossings, which run beneath the sprawling eight-lane high-ways that shoot out from the downtown center. The Russian capital ranked as the leading European metropolitan area for auto congestion levels in 2014, according to GPS manufac-turer TomTom.
To help shake its reputation as a motorway mecca, the city approved a project to replace a four-lane roadway with a 45,000-square-meter (484,000-square-foot) public park. Project objectives included revitalizing the surrounding areas by building a public space that is accessible year-round.
Russian studio Wowhaus began sketching the new park without a confirmed budget, dividing the area into outdoor zones (filled with fountains, bike paths and lit pavilions) and
1 CHALLENGE 3 PROJECTS
12OLD INFRASTRUCTURE, NEW LIFE
How to repurpose abandoned buildings and defunct infrastructure to best meet a community’s needs is a problem seen in cities around the world. These projects are creative examples of how project leaders are reimagining these defunct spaces into revitalized resources.
indoor cafés and artist studios. After the studio presented proj-ect plans and a traffic analysis to the city’s mayor, the RUB2 billion project was approved and completed in eight months. It is now the first year-round park in Moscow.
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THE AUSSIE EFFECTand chemicals. Following the investment flurry of the past several years, the slowdown could precede more sustainable growth, Mr. Hsieh adds.
“It is slower, but this is partially by design,” he says. “What the Chinese government is aiming for is more sustainable and quality growth.”
While the slowdown has affected industries tied to real estate—such as manufacturers of steel, aluminum and glass—not all sectors face the same outlook, espe-cially if their organizations have solid project manage-ment practices in place, Mr. Hsieh says.
“If you are diversified and you have the latest project management tools, you have a good track record and you focus on the encouraged industries, then you will stay busy,” he says.
With the changing economy has come an even greater need for project management skills, Mr. Hsieh says. In the past, the government sometimes would eagerly green-light projects, despite subpar feasibility studies and return-on-investment esti-mates, he says. Now, it’s paying greater attention to the projects it approves and the oversight they need. —Ambreen Ali
China’s economic woes have implications far beyond its own borders—as Australia knows all too well.
China has been Austra-lia’s main customer for iron ore, the main ingredient in steel, leading to record profits for ore producers over the past decade. Yet China’s real-estate slump, particularly the dip in new apartment buildings, has driven a sharp decline in demand for steel and, with it, iron ore. China’s slowdown has led to dramatic fluctuations in iron ore prices that in turn have affected Australia’s national budget.
That decrease in demand has been accompanied by an increase in supply from industry heavyweights such as BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, Fortescue and Vale. After Australian production of iron ore increased 40 percent between 2010 and 2013, iron ore prices in 2014 fell to a five-year low.
As a result, some big iron projects planned for the next few years could have a hard time getting the investments they need. One such project is a US$7 bil-lion initiative to develop a mine, port and railway in western Australia.
It’s small wonder, then, that Goldman Sachs has announced the “end of the Iron Age.”
Elevated TrailA 2.7-mile (4.3-kilometer) stretch of the Bloomingdale train line in Chicago, Illinois, USA has been the subject of rehab speculation since its last freight ran in 2001. More than a decade later, a US$95 million project is finally underway to transform the space into a cycling and jogging path surrounded by new parks.
Originally slated for completion in late 2014, the project experienced a setback when an abnormally cold winter froze the team’s excavation phase. That caused project delays including cut-ting short the planting season originally scheduled for late summer. Plantings will now occur in the second quarter of this year.
“We want to … meet the visions set forth for the com-munity,” transportation com-missioner Rebekah Scheinfeld told the Chicago Tribune.
Factory FarmThe Guangdong Float Glass Factory in Shenzhen, China stopped production in 2009. The derelict factory didn’t just sit empty; it was in disar-ray. “The site was a piece of abandoned wasteland,” says Tris Kee, assistant professor, department of architecture, Uni-versity of Hong Kong, Hong Kong.
Yet her project team saw potential in the space, and chose the site to build its 8,100-square-meter (87,200-square-foot) Hong Kong Value Farm, a part organic farm, part art installation developed for the Shenzhen and Hong Kong Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism and Architecture.
To maximize the CNY700,000 project budget, the team incor-porated standing infrastructure whenever possible. Local bricks, for instance, were utilized to separate crops of bok choy and kale.
Though the installation has closed, the project team designed with the future in mind: The chief curator is developing a pro-posal to convert the organic farm into a public park. —Ian Fullerton
2 3
An iron ore mine in western Australia
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theEdge
Data Under Lock and KeyData security is not just a virtual concern, but a physical one. Project teams are constructing data centers that fend off real-world intrusion.
Large-scale cyberattacks have made clear organizations’ vulnerability to hackers—and the high stakes involved. The 2013 breach at Target compromised 40 million credit cards, 70 million custom-ers’ personal information and factored into the retail giant’s 46-percent plummet in holiday profits. The 2014 attacks at retailer Home Depot and JPMorgan Chase, the largest bank in the United States, affected 56 million cards and 76 million households, respectively.
Project teams thus face heightened pressure to defend the security of data centers—ground zero for all information. In 2013, for instance, Google spent US$7.35 billion on Internet infrastructure, largely due to its data-center expansion projects.
“For our mission-critical clients, the security of their facilities is high on the list of nonnegotiables,” says David Ibarra, project director at DPR Construction, Redwood City, California, USA, which has built data centers for Facebook and eBay.
DPR’s data centers range from simple cage environments requiring card access to “facilities that include barriers, bomb-blast-resistant zones and even dog-patrol areas,” Mr. Ibarra says. “These facilities must comply with multiple rings of security philosophy: deter, detect, access, delay, respond and deny.”
Data center provider Equinix also builds multiple rings of security into its data centers. “We design
“We design our centers to have
five layers of security before
anyone can even reach the
equipment.”—Raouf Abdel, Equinix Americas,
Denver, Colorado, USA
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our centers to have five layers of security before anyone can even reach the equipment,” says Raouf Abdel, regional operating chief, Equinix Americas, Denver, Colorado, USA. Equinix operates more than 100 data centers in 15 countries, helping to keep safe the information of organizations such as Amazon and Google.
Projects have featured security stations situ-ated behind ballistic glass and biometric scanning incorporated into almost every entry point. At Equinix-built facilities, potential intruders immedi-ately encounter the aptly named mantrap. A hall-way with a door on each end, the mantrap opens just one door at a time. Its biometric scanners and access code require the appropriate credentials before the second door will open. Otherwise, Mr. Abdel says, “the second door will not unlock, effec-tively trapping the person from entering or leav-ing the facility.” Guards can hold individuals here either for traffic flow or to squash security risks.
Such extremely well-guarded data centers come at a cost. Mr. Ibarra says DPR’s project budgets for its centers can jump 1 percent to 5 percent for secu-rity features such as crash-resistant perimeter fenc-ing, gunfire-resistant finishes and exterior-access deterrent mechanisms. Considering that Google spent US$390 million to expand its data center in Belgium, such measures, even at small percentages, mean hefty budget items. Yet they can offset poten-tially much greater costs resulting from lax security.
Custom-BuiltProject teams can’t build the same type of data centers for different clients—or even for the same client. They must weigh the demands of each facil-ity’s location.
“Site selection is driven by the primary busi-ness need—production or not, backup or disaster recovery, proximity to users—and security must be tailored to each location and facility type,” Mr.
Ibarra says. Google’s data centers in the Americas, Asia and Europe each have site-specific needs dependent on regional conditions and risks.
“Sometimes, within the United States,” Mr. Ibarra says, “we have to consider extra security in areas of the country where hunting season is typi-cal. Exterior elements may need addi-tional barriers installed to protect from potential bul-let impacts.”
In cities, DPR project teams might install, for instance, metal bars on venti-lation systems to prevent unauthorized access. DPR teams building facilities in more isolated locations have created 10-foot (3-meter) berms surrounding the structures, set back from the road by 150 feet (46 meters).
The most carefully protected data center is use-less, however, if it cannot perform seamlessly. To maintain uninterrupted service in these facilities, project teams must ensure the unlimited supply of electricity and water, especially in the event of power outages. Google’s facilities use diesel engine backup generators that can power the data centers at full capacity for extended periods of time.
To help maintain function, DPR uses alarms on manhole covers and security cameras detecting intrusions. “The primary power and water streams serving the data center are provided, maintained and protected, from plain vandalism to intentional breach,” Mr. Ibarra says. —Stephanie Schomer
Well-guarded data centers come at a cost. Project budgets can jump
1 to 5 percent for security features.
“These facilities must comply with multiple rings of security philosophy: deter, detect, access, delay, respond and deny.”
—David Ibarra, DPR Construction, Redwood City, California, USA
Facebook’s data center in Prineville, Oregon, USA
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THE SITUATION
CHANGING THEIR WAYSCEOs around the world face daunting technology and talent challenges. If they want their portfolios to succeed, the current climate demands they invest in change.
THE LATEST STATISTICS, SURVEYS AND STUDIES
Two major areas of strategic concern in 2015:
86% of CEOs say it’s important to understand how competitive advantages stem from digital technologies
77% of CEOs have or plan to adopt a strategy to attract diverse talent
TECHNOLOGY
TALENT
THE SITUATION
CEOs say digital technology enhances the business value of these areas:
88% say operational efficiency
85% say data and data analytics
77% say internal and external collaboration
77% say customer experience
50% of CEOs plan to increase their company’s headcount throughout the next 12 months
55% of Australian CEOs plan to do so
59% of U.S. CEOs plan to do so
US$130 billion expected global value of additional productivity made accessible by nurturing an adaptable talent pool
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THE SITUATION
71% of CEOs say their business actively searches for talent in different geographies, industries and demographic segments
CEOs’ talent strategies pursue, or will soon pursue, various aspects of diversity:
33% are pursuing or will pursue gender diversity
32% are pursuing or will pursue diversity in knowledge, skills and experience
25% are pursuing or will pursue diversity in ethnicity, nation-ality and race
64% of CEOs have adopted a diversity and inclusion strategy75% of CEOs in Brazil
66% of CEOs in Canada
57% of CEOs in the United Kingdom
LEADING THE WAYIn response to these top global trends, CEOs are:
Source: PwC, 18th Annual Global CEO Survey, 2015
THE SITUATION
CEOs say digital technology enhances the business value of these areas:
88% say operational efficiency
85% say data and data analytics
77% say internal and external collaboration
77% say customer experience
Executives say it’s strategically important to invest in digital technology:
85%of CEOs whose companies have a formal
diversity and inclusion strategy think it has improved the bottom line
58%creating business value in talent acqui-sition, retention and development through digital investments
75%supporting specific hiring and training strategies to integrate digital technology
78%using multiple chan-nels, including online and social media plat-forms, to find talent
46%using data analytics to provide better insight into how effectively workforce skills are being deployed
CEOs with diversity and inclusion strategies see clear benefits:
90% have attracted talent
85% have enhanced business performance
83% have strengthened brand and reputation
55% have helped companies com-pete in new industries or geographies
THE RESPONSE
81%of CEOs are seeking a much broader range of skills
50% of CEOs plan to increase their company’s headcount throughout the next 12 months
55% of Australian CEOs plan to do so
59% of U.S. CEOs plan to do so
US$130 billion expected global value of additional productivity made accessible by nurturing an adaptable talent pool
THE RESPONSE
47% say leveraging emerging technologies is one of their top three reasons
for creating strategic alliances or partnerships
15% of CEOs who have entered or considered entering a new sector
within the past three years have chosen technology
32% view the technology sector as the main source of cross-sector competition
58% cite the speed of technological change as a threat
71% see this threat in the Asia Pacific region
37% see this threat in Central and Eastern Europe
81% Mobile technology for customer engagement
80% Data mining and analysis
78% Cybersecurity
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Patrolling the SkiesCol. Reid Vander Schaaf, PhD, sen-sors development project manager, U.S. Department
of Defense, Huntsville,
Alabama, USA
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from the U.S. Air Force’s Air War College. He later got his doctorate in system-of-systems engineering from Purdue University.
In addition to his long military career and many project manager roles, Vander Schaaf has taught at West Point. As a professor, he learned how to tell stories, which served him well as a project man-ager. “That’s how you communicate with people,” he says.
Which kinds of radar does your office handle?There are three kinds. The first two are homeland defense radars: a ground-based radar developed in the mid-’90s and the Sea-Based X-band (SBX) radar. After the events of September 11th, there was
In 1984, the U.S. Department of Defense formed the Sensors Program Directorate in response to the Soviet threat. Its directive was to help protect the United States by creating radar technology that could detect ballistic missiles. Three decades later, that remains the office’s primary purpose even as its scope has broadened to protect deployed forces and allies in military theaters.
In June 2013, Col. Reid Vander Schaaf began leading the office. He brings a wealth of expertise to the project manager role. After graduating from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, he earned three master’s degrees: structural engineering and construction engineering management degrees from Stanford University and a strategic studies degree
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“[Project management standards] ensure that we’re following all the different systems engineering processes to determine what looks promising to continue to mature and test.”
Small TalkBest professional advice you’ve ever received?Maintain your bal-ance. You need to be balanced in life, be-cause work can really consume your time.
The one skill every project manager should have?The ability to build a team with a shared vision.
Favorite thing to do in your spare time?Running. I try hard to stay at 40 miles [64 kilometers] a week. My kids both run cross-country, so I run with them.
urgency to increase homeland defense—that’s the origin of the Sea-Based X-band radar. It can see a baseball from 2,500 miles [4,023 kilometers] away.
The third radar system is the AN/TPY-2 [the Army Navy/Transportable Radar Surveillance] radar. We’re contracted to build 12 of those. Ten have been delivered, and two are still in production.
What do these radars do?They search airspace to find and track ballistic mis-siles. But the other important thing they do—and the thing that X-bands are particularly well suited for—is discrimination. When there’s a launch of a missile, lots of things end up in flight with it. The job of the Missile Defense Agency is to find and intercept the lethal warhead. But you’ll have the tank, the boosters and debris, and there can be intentional countermeasures as well. This can make it really hard to find and intercept the lethal object with our missiles to protect our homeland and our assets in theater. Intercepting something traveling in space hundreds to thousands of miles away is very challenging.
What projects does your office execute to overcome that challenge?Every year or two there’s a new software build related to discrimination in particular. One of the roles I have is overseeing development of a long-range discrimination radar, which is going to start this year—a new Alaska-based radar for discrimi-nation. We’re developing the requirements and capabilities of that system. We also have other TPY radars in production.
So there’s a big focus on increasing our ability to distinguish the lethal object.
Why has discrimination become a more urgent concern?Threats continue to grow in number and capabil-ity. Whereas in the past we were dealing with relatively simple threats, at least from the smaller rogue states, those countries’ capabilities have continued to increase. If we look out another five to 10 years—and it takes us that long to develop new capabilities, too—it looks like they’re going to have the capability to add countermeasures to make it harder for us to determine what the lethal object is.
How does your office use project management standards when developing software capabilities?Project management standards help ensure program success, and they do that by giving us best practices and a structure that helps ensure rigor. They ensure that we’re following all the different systems engi-neering processes to determine what looks promis-ing to continue to mature and test, and to ensure it has independent verification. The Missile Defense Agency has a robust test program to make sure these things really work before we field them.
What does the testing phase look like?We build a little, test a little. We’re building incredi-bly complex, challenging capabilities. Intercontinen-tal ballistic missile intercepts approach 10,000 miles [16,093 kilometers] per hour—exo-atmospheric, so way up in space. We have very small margins of error. So we build a bit of capability, test it and make sure we don’t get unintended consequences—that’s been a big risk—before we keep building and continue to add the next capabilities.
It takes longer, but because we’re shooting down missiles and launching missiles, we don’t want anything to go wrong. So it is very much a con-tinual build process.
How has the U.S. budget “sequestration” of 2013, which lowered defense spending, affected your office?
It’s made for a challenging environment, espe-cially given uncertainty around future funding. But so far we’ve mitigated that. Some things have been delayed a bit, but discrimination has been a very high priority and that’s actually received additional funding. PM
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VOICES Project Toolkit
From looming deadlines to scope changes to overbearing clients, projects can be stressful. But the stress doesn’t have to be overwhelming. We asked practitioners: When the pressure is on, how do you relieve your team’s stress?
Under Pressure
Sweat It Out Trying to deliver excellent quality under
tight deadlines carries a strong risk of
stress which, in my experience, reduces
team members’ productivity and efficiency.
We’ve adopted a practice that may seem less im-
portant than, say, risk management, but is actually just
as useful: 20 minutes of daily exercise. A professional
trainer visits the office and leads us through stretches,
relaxation and strengthening exercises, along with
games that reinforce the team dynamic. The sessions
aren’t mandatory, but most team members partici-
pate. Not only does exercising prevent strain injuries
(like the ones you might get from sitting in front of the
computer for several hours and having bad posture),
but the sessions improve the team’s mental health and
contribute to better performance and productivity.” —Andrea Paparello, PMP, project manager, LDS-LABS, Fortaleza, Brazil
Take a Laugh Break I’ve found the best way to handle stress is
humor and team camaraderie, especially
when we’re trying to problem-solve. I
encourage the team to brainstorm together by asking
them to share a relevant experience (“tell us about the
last time you dealt with a similar issue”) and the lessons
learned from it. Then I’ll attempt to find some humor in
the event. But humor doesn’t have to be about work—it
can be a silly chat for a few minutes about what hap-
pened at lunch. If all else fails, I’ll share a Dilbert comic
strip [known for its satirical office humor].
Once, on a very challenging project with an extremely
tight deadline, our developers were having trouble com-
ing up with a solution to a problem at a meeting. So they
took a break to banter. Even though they were joking, I
could tell it was a productive conversation, so I didn’t stop
the flow of energy. We all laughed for a few minutes and
gave our brains a break from the stress. By the time the
meeting ended, the team had come up with a solution.”
—RaeLynn DeParsqual, PMP, project manager, Insight Global, Fort Lauderdale, Florida, USA
Inclusive Planning,Constant Communication
Avoiding surprises—both from team
members and issues that may arise with
the project itself—is a good way to
keep team stress to a minimum.
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MARCH 2015 PM NETWORK 21
To that end, I do a lot of work in the project’s plan-
ning stage. I meet with the team to discuss scope and
what needs to be accomplished, and we discuss various
options and their associated risks until we reach the
best one. I also ask my team members what they spe-
cifically want to achieve on a particular project and how
they plan on achieving it.
Once the project gets underway, I hold face-to-face
discussions with team members during which they can
talk about their needs and concerns with the project.
Asking for feedback lets me fix misunderstandings as
soon as they arise. Plus, I’ve found that when everyone
on the team feels heard, it’s more likely that they’ll hap-
pily proceed with the job at hand.”
—Nick Fartais, PMP, project manager, Endeavour Energy, Sydney, Australia
Manage the Workload Stress management equals workload
management. It’s difficult to make sure
any single team member doesn’t feel
like the project is entirely on his or her shoulders, but
always remind them that—to paraphrase Ben-Hur—we
all exist for the good of the ship.
I was working on a project to develop a training
exercise for two U.S. Army divisions and several smaller
units. As the Army kept adding units to the exercise, we
rapidly outgrew the available space. My team’s stress
level climbed as the units were added.
The first thing I did was remind the project team
members who weren’t affected by the space issue to
continue on with their parts of the project. Then I took
the remaining team members down to the training site.
A 3-Step Solution
What’s Your Solution?There are myriad ways to prevent and manage stress. Share your tips and tricks on the PMI Project, Program and Port-folio Management LinkedIn Group.
After three weeks of problem-solving, we determined
how to maximize the space and remotely connect to
other sites so everyone could participate in the exercise.
Be the shield that protects your team. And of course,
know when to send your people home.”
—Brian Schonfeld, PMP, operations officer and travel program manager, Mission Command Training Program, U.S. Army, Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, USA
Work Toward a Common Goal
As a project manager, you have much to
gain by building a strong sense of shared
purpose. Make the team collectively com-
mit to complete work within a sprint. Help the team by
removing impediments to progress. Then there should
be no reason to feel any stress.
A couple of years ago, I was leading the project
management office (PMO) at Europe’s leading provider
of accessories for sound and vision. We had the op-
portunity to pursue an emerging product category, but
the technology was immature and not widely tested.
The engineers had no real feeling for the product or
the purpose.
However, the CEO helped by providing an inspir-
ing market vision and customer dialogue. To avoid
stress due to uncertainty, we designed in modules and
prototyped a lot. With time, the modules grew into a
shippable product. As a result of the hard work we put
in, we became early adopters of the product and the
team became industry experts along the way!”
—Richard Svahn, PMI-ACP, PMP, project manager, National Civil Authority, Stockholm, Sweden
Stress is a natural defense mecha-nism to keep us alert to possible danger. It’s also subjective: During the same project, one team member may feel much more stress than another. Alan Patching and Rick Best’s 2014 study, An Investigation Into Psychological Stress Detection and Management in Organizations Operating in Project and Construc-tion Management, published in
the journal Procedia—Social and Behavioral Sciences, suggests three steps for managing individuals’ stress levels: 3. Monitor the results
1. Note job-related stressors and apply risk management strategies
2. Monitor when a team member seems stressed and teach him or her coping techniques
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Q
CONCRETE CONNECTIONS
Q: I want to start a new career in project man-agement. What questions should I ask project managers who already have a great career? A: Finding out more about a career in project management from those who have already carved out their path is an excellent idea. It is known as informational interviewing. If you have some great people to speak to, make sure you get the best out of that opportunity. Here are seven areas to con-sider and a selection of questions you can ask to really understand what project managers do:
1. Start with job satisfaction and motivation. Ask questions like, “What do you enjoy most and least about your job?”, “How does the job differ from your initial expectations?” and “What inspires you to do your job?”
2. Ask about the details of the work with ques-tions like, “What is a typical day for you?”, “How do you know you are doing a good job?”, “What skills do you use the most?” and “Give me an example of the sort of activities your job involves.”
3. Ask them to detail their career progression (it will become apparent that there isn’t necessarily a typical project management career path). Ask how they have been promoted and how they gained experience. Ask about their ultimate career goals.
4. Find out about the work culture and environ-ment, as well as the management aspects of the job. Ask, “How much time do you spend work-ing with your team, your customers and on your own?”, “What type of person makes a good project manager?” and “What are your experiences man-aging projects in this particular environment?” The
answers can reveal details that you may—or may not—like about this potential career.
5. Project management roles vary from organi-zation to organization. Get a broader understand-ing by talking to practitioners in different sectors. Specific questions could include, “Are there a lot of opportunities within the sector?”, “What is staff turnover like?”, “How do you see project manage-ment changing in this sector in the future?” and “How competitive is the sector?”
6. Ask about job hunting. Some project manag-ers can offer dual insights, because not only did they find their current job, but they also hire team members. Ask, “What background or experience is useful and how do people typically get it?”, “How did you get your job?”, “What would you look for on someone’s CV or résumé?”, “What do you look for when hiring someone?” and “What advice would you give to someone in my position?”
7. Finally, realize this informational interview is also a networking opportunity, a crucial skill for anyone in this career. Don’t be afraid to ask ques-tions like, “Would you let me know if there are any opportunities that might be suitable for me?”, “Can we stay connected on LinkedIn?”, “Would you mind if I occasionally drop you a line?” and “Is there anyone else you recommend I talk to?”
Make the most of the time you’re given to under-stand the differing views that project managers have. Hopefully the questions you pick will uncover whether this is the right career choice for you.
Q: In my current job, I perform the role of project manager but it’s not my official title. How will this affect my chances of finding another project management role? A: Organizations have many different job titles for people who work in and around projects, but titles like service delivery manager, product manager, projects engineer or coordinator can mask the actual role someone performs. If you are worried about prospective employ-
CAREER Q&A
From the project manager just beginning on a career path to a seasoned pro ready to take the next step, networks make a difference. BY LINDSAY SCOTT
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Lindsay Scott is the director of program and project management recruitment at Arras People in London, England.
ers thinking you are not really a project manager, there is a simple way to rectify this: Make sure your résumé or CV accurately details your project management responsibilities and includes com-mon project management language. You can also simply add the words “project manager” in brackets after the job title on your résumé. This is not about replacing the actual job title (I wouldn’t recommend this because it isn’t factually cor-rect, which may cause a problem when potential employers check your references). It is a change you are making to reflect the wider marketplace, using a job title that everyone understands. Q: Is Twitter a good place to learn about proj-ect management? A: There are a number of ways to use Twitter as a project manager. The trick is to make sure you are using it in the right way. You can follow popu-lar hashtags (a searchable word, combination of words or acronym marked by the # symbol) like #pmot. It stands for “project managers on Twit-ter.” The tweets are an eclectic mix of project managers sharing news, blogs, surveys or useful websites. A host of organizations also share the latest products or news about conferences or events.
New hashtags spring up every day, especially when there is a par-ticular
project management conference or event. If you can’t attend a certain event, you can virtually attend by following the hashtag.
There’s also #PMChat, a weekly Friday event when project managers from around the globe chat about a particular project management theme. It’s been happening for three years. Recent themes have included agile project management, digital project management, interviews and plan-ning. The emphasis is making connections. New users are encouraged to initiate conversations, so don’t hold back. PM
Make sure your résumé or CV accurately details your project management responsibilities and includes common project management language.
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VOICES In the Trenches
ALTHOUGH AN OPERATION is completely differ-ent from a project, many project managers find them-selves in roles involving operations. The good news is the jobs involve a considerable overlap in skills.
Consider a business operation such as produc-tion support, design maintenance or remediation. Here, operations managers focus on executing, monitoring and controlling the business operations so that business goals are achieved. This will sound familiar to project managers, who execute, monitor and control a project’s process groups.
Here are three of the most important project management skills needed if you find yourself in operations management:
COMMUNICATION As a liaison to multiple stakeholders, an operations manager needs to plan communications by iden-tifying all the required stakeholders, then working out the mode and frequency of communication for each of them. For example, an operations man-ager handling a production support team needs to communicate the list of prioritized activities to the operations team, relate the progress of tickets or requests to customers, and keep senior management informed of operational activities.
Operations managers also need to proactively identify and communicate any potential overdue tasks to the required stakeholders, as well as escalate any non-compliance to service level agreements according to the organization’s escalation policies and procedures. Once, while managing a production support team, I handled a highly escalated customer ticket as a small-scale project. Since the ticket had a huge impact on the production environment, the
customer insisted on getting an immediate fix or patch. I arranged a quick meeting of the operations team to make sure we understood the issue, its root cause and the impact. When we were unable to identify a temporary fix, we knew we would have to develop a permanent one and release a patch. Con-sidering the customer’s business impact, I met with the senior management stakeholders immediately, summarized the issue and explained that it should be handled as a mini project. My communications skills, honed while managing projects, were a great asset at this point.
NEGOTIATION AND INFLUENCINGWhen an operations manager handles a high-severity customer request or a production ticket, he or she might have to use negotiation and influencing skills to acquire highly skilled techni-cal resources from a project team. Negotiation may also be required to explain to the customer about the complexity of tickets being handled by the operations team and buy additional time, if required. At times, the operations manager might even have to negotiate with and influence his or her team members to get tasks done.
In my operations mini-project, the next step after communicating was to devise a plan and negotiate with senior executives to create a “tiger team” of different resources, such as an architect who could propose a permanent fix, a designer who could implement, a configuration manager who could build the code and develop a patch, and a lead tester who could deploy the patch and test all possible scenarios, with the architect’s assistance. But because those people were already assigned to projects, I had to negotiate with project managers. To create a win-win situation, I had earlier negotiated with senior executives that this escalation would be the highest priority, and any other program or project would have to be depri-oritized. This meant project managers willingly lent the resources required for the tiger team.
LEADERSHIP An operations manager must direct, facilitate, coach and lead teams to handle daily operations.
Smooth Operator
How to use your project management skills in operations.
By Deepa Gandhavalli Ramaniah, PMP
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Deepa Gandhavalli Ramaniah, PMP, is senior associate—projects at Cognizant Technology Solutions, Chennai, India.
He or she should be aware of the competencies possessed by the team and assign tasks accord-ingly. He or she also must motivate team members through continuous appreciation and recognition.
The operations manager should possess excel-lent problem-solving and decision-making skills. For instance, when a production problem arises, an operations manager should have a complete understanding of the problem’s context, impact and consequences before making a decision on the timeline for resolution. It is also a good practice to meet with the operations team to get its buy-in on the timeline before committing to the customer.
It’s common for operational team members to disagree on issues or solutions to problems. The operations manager must take the lead, bring the team members together, get their thoughts, ana-lyze pros and cons of each member’s proposal and identify the best-fit solution. It is the operations manager’s responsibility to create a problem-solv-ing environment and manage conflict.
Returning to my example: Once the team was formed through negotiation and influencing, we held a brief meeting to explain the background, what was expected from each resource, the project
deadlines and so on. As operations manager, I made sure the team had all the required resources, such as hardware and software, to execute the project. I directed the lead tester to get involved during the implementation phase itself, so he could prepare the test cases and get them reviewed by the architect before the patch got delivered to him for testing. I worked to ensure the tiger team was constantly motivated and empowered to fix the issue by the deadline.
But at one point, two members of the team got into a serious argument over an error. I called them to a meeting and, using my interpersonal skills, explained that we were not there to blame but to get the patch to the customer by the dead-line. I persuaded them to shake hands and proceed with the next phase. After successful testing of the patch, we were able to deliver it to the customer as planned. Finally, I arranged a meeting with the tiger team and senior executives and made sure the team was recognized for its work. PM
It is the operations manager’s responsibility to create a problem-solving environment and manage conflict.
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TI
RUSH HOUR
Sheilina Somani, RPP, FAPM, PMP, is the owner of the U.K.-based consultancy Positively Project Management, a senior project manager, a speaker and a mentor.
It’s almost a requirement of every project man-ager to boldly go into new territory. Recently, it was my turn to fulfill this requirement. As scary as it can be to journey into uncharted waters, I learned that knowing whom to petition for help and resources can ensure smooth sailing.
A senior sponsor asked me to establish a dia-logue between two IT teams about viable strate-gies for the global implementation of a software system that respected the organization’s current IT infrastructure. The outcome of this dialogue was critical to a program that I’m responsible for. The challenge was my knowledge is largely in data integrity, legal data storage requirements, speed and performance from an experienced user per-
spective. I voiced my concerns to the senior sponsor, who nevertheless tasked me with the responsibility. But I knew I needed help. I called a meeting with 10 very tech-nical, experienced individuals (to add some authority to the request, I used the sponsor’s name).
Though I dreaded this meeting, it soon became an animated dialogue between the experts and me. I asked for help on everything from clarifying acronyms
to explaining new terms. At the end of the meeting, I confirmed with the experts what I’d summarized from the day and scheduled a subsequent session to conclude findings. I was appreciative when everyone turned up to the follow-up session, on time, with more opinions, research and suggestions.
By being honest about my lack of knowledge about IT infrastructure, I had provided these indi-viduals full permission to contribute, challenge and advise me to ensure my understanding before writ-ing a recommendation and influencing a sponsor decision. The sponsor was extremely pleased with the progress and eventual outcome, and so was I. Even though I initially resisted the task, following through with it meant everyone gained something from the experience. I learned the sponsor has confidence in me. I got to know a completely new group of people with skills vastly different from my own that I can go to for help and guidance. The group members learned from one another, appre-ciating the opportunity to collaborate and engage in problem resolution.
As project managers, we have to communicate with people across a multitude of disciplines. Not only does it give us the opportunity to garner multiple contributions and put them toward the project goal, but this communication also encour-ages our own professional progress while growing our network. In this case, my acting as a facilitator for these meetings between IT teams—rather than project lead—not only fostered dialogue and coop-eration between the two teams, it also expanded my own knowledge, network and range of skills, and taught me again about the benefits of honesty and seeking help.
Most significantly, we delivered a collaborative, comprehensive report to fulfill the sponsor requirement. When another opportunity comes to work with this particular group, I’ll be the first to volunteer. PM
When tasked with a project in an unfamiliar industry, remember that you don’t have to go it alone. BY SHEILINA SOMANI, RPP, FAPM, PMP, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
FACING FEARS
MANAGING Relationships
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TThe United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) often manages projects in which every minute counts. Here’s what I’ve learned about hurrying a project toward completion.
DONE IS BETTER THAN PERFECTEveryone wants perfection, but the priority should be completing your task. A completed element can be tinkered with or optimized while being of use, but an unfinished one confuses attempts at improvement while being of no utility at all. In the realm of development projects, perfect is the enemy of good. After the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, UNOPS worked hard to build shelters for survivors and provide them with access to basic living conditions. There is a big difference between a shelter and a five-star hotel, but we must prioritize what is essen-tial when we have limited time to deliver.
COMPRESSION IS CRITICALSchedule compression is a technique that shortens the project duration to meet key stakeholders’ expectations without reducing scope. This may be required if, for instance, changes in environmental conditions, logistical constraints, economic land-scape or political climate are likely to derail the project unless it is completed immediately.
The project manager must find ways to reduce the time it will take to complete all remaining activities. The two classic solutions are to increase the parallel-ism (fast-track) and/or increase resources (crashing).
WHEN YOU COMPRESS, YOU INCREASE STRESSSchedule compression can push time, cost and quality to the extreme. The most significant way to lead a team through schedule compression is by supporting team members and understanding that stress levels are likely to rise. Despite the level of tolerance and experience team members build up during every project, stress can manifest itself in different ways, and its accumulation can come at a significant cost to project accuracy.
Project managers must mitigate this risk through the Three C’s Process:
COMMUNICATIONAlthough a team working long hours, seven days a week, can deliver its project earlier than originally planned, the quality of delivery may be affected. Mistakes requiring rework can end up increasing stress levels and lengthening the time needed to complete the project; this may negate the whole schedule compression effort. Communicating exactly what is expected of the team in terms of quality and performance, despite the shortened time frame, is necessary for successful delivery.
COORDINATIONSchedule compression can just as easily create new challenges as it can hasten project delivery. To achieve results, project managers need to moni-tor and analyze the dynamics in the office and the field. Organizing daily site meetings for close coordination can help with quality control and provides an arena in which problems with team members can be resolved efficiently. The key word in this process is integration.
CONSIDERATIONYou need to understand your staff and consider their welfare. Accidents are more frequent when and where people are overworked, so consider the specifics of your team’s time-related stress factors: What conditions are they working in? What can you do to help? Ensuring that your team members understand they will be prop-erly compensated for their additional efforts (through the provision of extra days off) can make all the difference.
Finally, the success of all projects is related to how we lead people and manage stress during critical moments. Despite the sense of urgency that triggers the schedule compression, the project manager must effectively communicate, coordi-nate and consider the team to deliver results. PM
Beat the clock swiftly and carefully. BY RICARDO VIANA VARGAS, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PMPRUSH HOUR
Ricardo Viana Vargas, PMI-RMP, PMI-SP, PMP, a past PMI chair, is the director of the Sustainable Project Management Group at the United Nations Office for Project Services in Copenhagen, Denmark.
Even the best of schedules can change. Visit PMI.org to read November 2014’s edition of PM Network about when a project schedule changes and the scope does not.
Even the best of schedules can change. Visit PMI.org to read November 2014’s edition of PM Network about when a project schedule changes and the scope does not.
LEADERSHIP
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A
VOICES In the Trenches
You Get the Picture Project managers learn the challenges of making a movie. By Rhonda Wilson Oshetoye, PMP, and Laurence Cook, PMP
Rhonda Wilson Oshetoye, PMP, and Laurence Cook, PMP, are practicing partners at RLO Enterprises, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
MAKING A MOVIE IS A PROJECT. Yet when our project management firm undertook a film for the first time, we could find little information about project management in the movie industry. Instead, we had to discover on our own how to implement project management methodologies in this field.
When BJG Media Productions hired us for the indie film A Choice to Yield, our project managers facilitated the initiation discussion with stakehold-ers. Once stakeholders agreed on the scope and budget, the team began the initiation process.
Planning was a nightmare at first, as we tried to learn the ins and outs of moviemaking. With minimal guidance and without historical documents, the team struggled to understand the depth and cost of every task. We learned through intense research that the closest position to a project manager is the line producer. Once the line pro-ducer responsibilities became clear, planning began to roll. Planning ses-sions shifted to risks.
We created a risk management plan with high-, medium- and low-risk factors and associated costs for each. From changing actors to planning the use of venues, the cost of change is a huge variable for movies. One venue change can cost
up to US$15,000 for a three-hour shoot. The ten-sion between the director’s vision and the reality of managing the budget for unknowns is a serious issue, and managing the director became the high-est and most costly risk of the entire project.
A STRICT BUDGET FOCUSProject plans had to be solidified before the first scene could be shot. We broke the plan into phases. From there, our team planned everything from the script review to the casting call, identi-fied resources, procured equipment and enacted a
communication plan. We planned movement from set to set, coordinated with a caterer and signed venue contracts.
Next, we distributed the shoot schedule and wardrobe requirements to each actor, gaffer, cam-eraman, associate director and other production support personnel.
Project execution entailed early morning pre-shoot meetings and post-shoot assessments of the shots—including immediate lessons-learned discus-sions, schedule adjustments and revalidating resource assignments. This process enabled us to manage every aspect of filming with regard to contract agree-ments, set requirements and payment distribution.
The need to reshoot scenes required significant adjustments to the schedule and budget. While we’d expected some reshoots, we didn’t expect as many as were required. This sent the budget spiraling, and pushed us back to planning. To mitigate cost and overages per scene, we made specific adjustments for future shoots. We reduced lighting costs by shooting night scenes during the day and simplified makeup requirements. We also had to renegotiate a few contracts, make backdrop construction changes on location and modify venue-use agreements. As with any project in execution, budget awareness took precedence and required strict focus.
This paid off when the project was successfully completed 2 percent under budget. In addition, our firm has been asked to manage another movie project.
Of the many skills project managers bring to the film industry, the most important are manag-ing change and controlling the supporting tasks of filming. The orchestration of multiple moving parts requires a project manager’s ability to adapt and overcome obstacles. In moviemaking, the unknowns are huge and unpredictable, but the project manager’s skills and training are a great fit for managing the process. PM
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THE BUSINESS of Projects
IMPOSED DEADLINE SYNDROME
Setting unrealistic goals can doom a project manager. Instead, build budgets and schedules from the ground up.BY GARY R. HEERKENS, MBA, CBM, PMP, CONTRIBUTING EDITOR
A
Gary R. Heerkens, MBA, CBM, PMP, president of Management Solutions Group Inc., is a consultant, trainer, speaker, and author and has 25 years of project management experience. His latest book is The Business-Savvy Project Manager.
targets are not derived from carefully developed plans. They are not based in reality; they are based in desire. The most damaging of these imposed targets are the unrealistic ones. According to a majority of project managers I meet these days (and I meet a large num-ber through my training activities), unrealistic targets are disturbingly common. This creates an environ-ment of high stress and frustration for project manag-ers who are often well aware that they are heading down a dark path of project performance.
From a business perspective, the impact is note-worthy. When imposed deadlines are unachievable, projects are delivered late, which triggers a delay in the realization of financial returns. In situations where both the delay and the estimated financial return are sizable, the result can be an enormous overall reduc-tion in realized economic gain.
When imposed budgets are not achievable, the result is turmoil as money must be acquired elsewhere, which can affect the timing and funding of other projects.
But there’s also a human cost to this situation. When project managers spend the majority of their time trying to achieve the unachievable, the result is frustration and potential burnout.
The core lesson is simple: Organizational managers who want an environment of predictability and fiscal responsibility will avoid imposing unrealistic solu-tions, deadlines and budgets. PM
As my gray hair clearly suggests, I’ve been around project management for a long time. I began leading projects more than 35 years ago, and I’ve noticed many changes in my work and in the profession. Some of the biggest changes involve how project timelines and budgets are developed: These responsibilities seem to have drifted away from the project manager’s role.
Years ago, project managers were given problems to solve based on the needs of the business. They would work with their teams to investigate those problems, and then recommend a preferred solution to senior management. They would also provide an estimated budget and timeline. And while there may have been some give-and-take between project teams and senior management, it was common to be granted the requested amount of time and fund-ing (after a proper costs-versus-benefits analysis). The payoff for all parties was an exceptionally high percentage of on-time and on-budget project deliv-eries. Project outcomes were reasonably predictable.
Over the past decade or two, there has been a slow and steady shift in senior management behav-ior. Many executives now appear to believe that a legitimate part of their role is to tell the project manager what the best solution is, when the proj-ect is to be completed and how much to spend. The reality for many of today’s project managers is that they are no longer asked to generate authen-tic, bottom-up schedule and cost estimates. They’re instead given those values as targets and then have to force-fit their plans to suit the situation.
It is crucial to note that in many cases these
When project managers spend the majority of their time trying to achieve the unachievable, the result is frustration and potential burnout.
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BY EMMA HAAK n ILLUSTRATION BY ROB DONNELLY
Rethinking Cities With the global challenge of
a booming urban population comes the opportunity to create more advanced cities.
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While the cities themselves may be new, the idea behind them isn’t, says Eran Ben-Joseph, PhD, professor and head of the department of urban studies and planning at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. Whereas most cities develop organically over time, the practice of building new ones from scratch became common after World War II in countries like China, England, Japan and Russia, where they were primarily government initiatives.
“What sets these new and future cities apart, how-ever, is that sustainability and ecological technology are being incorporated into them, and while they often have government involvement, they tend to come from the private sector,” Dr. Ben-Joseph says.
ENVISIONING TOMORROW’S CITIES TODAYBefore this bold new future can get built, the cities’ project sponsors first must make the same decision facing any construction project: location. A city set slightly apart from, yet still close to, other urban hubs has proved to be the ideal.
The US$35 billion new city of Songdo Inter-national Business District (IBD), South Korea is within the metropolis of Incheon and near Seoul. Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates, a US$18 billion project, is just 11 miles (17 kilometers) out-side the capital of Abu Dhabi. In India, the city of
Today, just over half of the world’s 7.2 billion people live in urban areas. By 2050, that’s projected to soar to two-thirds of 9.6 billion people, according to the United Nations.
To prepare for that tremendous urban growth, project leaders in both the public and private sectors are taking action—from rebuilding existing cities to constructing entirely new ones. These cities of the future will accommodate unprecedented populations with projects that extend far beyond new buildings.
The initiatives also run the full gamut of infrastruc-ture that the millions of new residents will need, such as power grids, water management, waste removal, public transit and educational facilities. To support long-term growth, these city projects, often com-prising public-private partnerships, also must entail state-of-the-art sustainability and connectivity.
“We are going to have to think very differently about how we build cities, particularly in the devel-oping countries that are urbanizing so fast, so these cities give us an example,” says Joan Fitzgerald, PhD, professor of urban and public policy at Northeast-ern University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA. “They point us in the right direction in terms of how we can totally rethink how cities look and are built.”
Almost 90 percent of urban growth will be con-centrated in Africa and Asia, while just three coun-tries—China, India and Nigeria—will account for 37 percent of the projected city surge by 2050.
The world’s cities are feeling the squeeze.
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“What sets these new and future cities apart is that sustainability and ecological technology are being incorporated into them, and while they often have government involvement, they tend to come from the private sector.”—Eran Ben-Joseph, PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
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Lavasa aims to take advantage of its proximity to Pune, a booming software hub 40 miles (64 kilome-ters) away. Konza Techno City, Kenya, a US$14.5 billion development, will be 37 miles (60 kilometers) from the capital of Nairobi.
China has offered a counterpoint lesson. As many cities have sprung up in remote areas, the country has seen an epidemic of ghost towns—newly con-structed urban centers that did not attract busi-nesses and residents and now sit largely empty. “These Chinese cities were built mainly as specula-tive housing projects, not necessarily corresponding to where people want to live,” Dr. Ben-Joseph says.
It may seem counterintuitive to build a new city near another, more established one, but such urban clusters carry distinct advantages. “You can ben-efit from and complement the social and economic dynamics of the metropolis. This makes the new city much more attractive for companies and the types of tenants they envision hosting,” says Luis Carvalho, PhD, senior researcher, European Institute for Com-parative Urban Research, Rotterdam, the Netherlands.
To help future residents and businesses appreciate the allure of their city over others, project sponsors must coordinate with nearby cities to make sure they’re complementing others’ appeal, not duplicat-ing it. “Many new cities are designed to provide heavy incentives to lure companies, but those are often insufficient to match the social advantages of other places, let alone the fact that they can hardly be kept over time,” Dr. Carvalho says. “This would call for the integration and coordination between the new city and other nearby locations, to avoid negative-sum competition for companies and tenants.”
Source: United Nations
“[New] Chinese cities were built mainly as speculative housing projects, not necessarily corresponding to where people want to live.” —Eran Ben-Joseph
The Urban FutureThe world will see not only more cities, but bigger ones too.
City DwellersPercentages and populations of the world living in urban areas
BigMedium-sized cities, each with 1 million to 5 million inhabitants
1950
100%
10%
50%
2014 2050
30% 54% 66%
746 million people
3.9 billion people
6.4 billion people
417 827 million people
43 300 million people
8 percent of the global urban population
28 16 in Asia, 4 in Latin America,
3 in Africa, 3 in Europe, 2 in North America
453 million people12 percent of the global
urban population
63 400 million people
9 percent of the global urban population
41 Top two:
Tokyo, Japan, 37 million; Delhi, India, 36 million
558 1.1 billion people
BiggerLarge cities, each with 5 million to 10 million inhabitants
BiggestMegacities, each with more than 10 million inhabitants
2014 2030
2014 2030
2014 2030
medium-sized cities
large cities large cities
medium-sized cities
Top two: Tokyo, Japan, 38 million; Delhi, India, 25 million
megacities megacitiesIM
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with taking these cities from grand vision to on-the-ground reality must be able to adapt to change.
Such long-range initiatives demand flexible plans. Cutting-edge technology is standard in these new cities, but what’s forward-thinking today won’t be down the road. Project managers need to determine how the technologies they’re implementing now can be updated when the time comes.
“That’s one of the elements that can be quite problematic—when you build a whole new town out of scratch and you just build it for a particular era or time, it doesn’t necessarily modify itself very well to changing circumstances,” Dr. Ben-Joseph says. “You might have a place that looks great now, but the question is how will it look 10 years down the line. And as technology and elements that deal with sustainability and infrastructure change, how will you adapt?” That means creating flexible, adaptable systems that allow for disruptive innovation, he adds.
Project plans also must consider the city’s future growth—and determine how to direct it. “City
Location is crucial, but it isn’t enough. To attract and retain more and more people and businesses, tomorrow’s cities must be better than yesterday’s—more advanced with regards to sustainability and technology. In the cities of Gujarat, India and Songdo, that means an underground network of vacuum-powered tubes that shuttle garbage from homes to a central processing facility. In Masdar City, it means designing a city layout that creates cooling breezes.
These cities also will sustain burgeoning pop-ulations with reliable public transportation that replaces the need—and desire—for private trans-port. “You have to put your money in good public transit,” says Carolina Barco, senior adviser, Emerg-ing and Sustainable Cities Initiative, Inter-Amer-ican Development Bank, Washington, D.C., USA. “You want to make taking public transit attractive because you want people to want to take it and not be forced to take it. Otherwise, they’ll start looking for alternatives, like cars and motorcycles.”
Project sponsors can’t agree to every sustain-able initiative that promises to ease the problems of overcrowding, however. In Masdar City, original plans called for small, two-person vehicles that oper-ated on a system separate from mass transit. After research into the development and implementation of the vehicles revealed they would be far pricier than anticipated, the plans were dropped.
“Planners and city officials have to be open to learning during the process and be willing to shift course,” Dr. Fitzgerald says.
FROM VISION TO REALITYLike project sponsors, the project managers tasked
Project managers tasked with taking these cities from grand vision to on-the-ground reality must be able to adapt to change.
Views of Songdo, South Korea, above, and Masdar City in the United Arab Emirates
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areas have a tendency to spread geographically faster than their population increases,” says Stel-lan Fryxell, architect and partner at architecture � rm Tengbom, Stockholm, Sweden. “Urban sprawl results in substantially higher energy and resource use, and makes it more di� cult to organize services compared with more compact cities.”
� e right plans can help control that sprawling tendency, Ms. Barco says. “Plan your major roadways, parks and green spaces � rst. � ose public spaces de� ne a city and give it quality. � en you’ll � nd that the city will � ll in a more organic way.” In Songdo, 40 percent of the city will be devoted to green space—one of the highest percentages in the world.
Because these long-term megaprojects often encounter budgetary changes, project plans also must include contingencies for funding shortages. � at can help projects avoid the “painful process of scaling down visions,” Dr. Carvalho says. Many projects, particularly in China, saw funding erode during the recent global � nancial crisis.
Change during these years-long initiatives can impact—and even drain—the social and political support driving them. “If debts start to mount or the
job creation that’s been touted hasn’t materialized yet, con� icts can arise and important stakeholders might withdraw,” Dr. Carvalho says. “It’s happened before, and new � nancial deals had to be negotiated between developers and city authorities. From a project management perspective, preventing this erosion is a critical challenge.” Case in point: After questions arose about possible human rights viola-tions at the construction site in Lavasa—one of India’s two dozen planned smart cities—several educational stakeholders, including Oxford Univer-sity, pulled out of the US$30 billion project.
Sustainable and technological features not only help create a more e� ective city as the end goal, they also help project managers overcome the challenge of wavering support—especially if those features are well communicated. “Evidence shows that capital and support drains out before the development starts to prove itself,” Dr. Carvalho says. “In this sense, it can be important to specialize in a few features in which the new city can de� nitely excel vis-à-vis similar developments elsewhere.” As an example, the multinational corporation Cisco will install its video-chatting technology into Songdo’s new residential buildings and hotels.
To help secure ongoing support, project leaders must work to ensure that both sides of these cities’ public-private partnerships are partners in more than name alone. “You need a government setting standards, but then giving the private sector leeway into � guring out how to meet those standards,” Dr. Fitzgerald says. “If the private sector is acting alone, they’ll make cost-based decisions. If it’s all public sector, there’s a tendency to be much more conservative and limit the experimentation that’s necessary for these projects.”
When public stakeholders don’t clearly communi-cate what they want from their private partners, the latter understandably will try to do what’s in their own best interest, Ms. Barco says. “If the private sector doesn’t have rules to work with, they work on projects that aren’t clearly oriented toward respond-ing to the city, because that isn’t their job,” she says.
Project managers not only have to get myriad
“We are going to have to think very differently about
how we build cities, particularly in the developing
countries that are urbanizing so fast.”—Joan Fitzgerald, PhD, Northeastern
University, Boston, Massachusetts, USA
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stakeholders to work together, they also must do so as stakeholders change over the course of projects that typically last many years. “These kinds of projects involve governments and public authorities, com-panies and real estate developers, universities, but also other actors from the civil society at large,” Dr. Carvalho says. “And they can also last for years and years. So the development and management of new cities always have to consider this complex patchwork of interests, that can—and very likely will—change during the long planning and development process.”
The Songdo project team learned those lessons firsthand. “Due to the dynamic nature of a large city-scale development spanning a long time horizon, we have had to withstand and ride through many market and financial cycles,” says Scott Summers, senior vice president of the city development firm Gale International Korea, Songdo, Korea. “Sidelin-ing or minimizing stakeholders in the planning and development process does not foster strong partnerships and relationships that are needed in a development with a long time horizon.”
When successful, these new cities can have an impact that spreads far beyond their own borders. “These developments can become important test beds for new ways of living,” Dr. Carvalho says, “helping to visualize what we consider now as unrealistic solutions and create momentum for the formation of new stakeholder coalitions and tech-nology development.”
“These developments can become important
test beds for new ways of living.”—Luis Carvalho, PhD, European Institute for Comparative Urban Research, Rotterdam, the Netherlands
A city in India boasts the lofty ambition of becoming the world’s newest hub for financial services and information technology. Strategically located near
the Ahmedabad airport in the state of Gujarat—whose economy has seen rapid growth over the past decade—the Gujarat International Finance Tec-City (GIFT) intends to answer India’s increasing need for professionals in the financial services and IT sectors by providing hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
The Noida, India-based Fairwood Group, which is designing and planning the infrastructure and buildings for the megaproject, has taken cues from other central business districts—such as Shinjuku in Tokyo, Japan; Lujiazui in Shanghai, China; La
Gujarat International Finance Tec-City, Gujarat, India
CASE STUDY / City on the Horizon
“The global financial meltdown led to investors abandoning the project, leading to delay in the implementation.”—Nitin Kumar, Fairwood Group, Noida, India
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Défense in Paris, France; and London, England’s Docklands. “� e study of these world-famous cen-tral business districts was used to prepare a frame-work of aspects of GIFT’s central business district functioning and its relationship with the city,” says Nitin Kumar, CEO, Fairwood Group, Noida, India.
When complete, GIFT will be more than a busi-ness district, however; it will be a self-sustaining city. “We designed a city where people will love to take the public transport system,” Mr. Kumar says. � e city will feature “free-� owing, extensive and usable green spaces, the ability to walk to work because all cars will travel underground, and skies that are completely free of wires, which will be underground.”
While job creation and commercial enterprises will be at the project’s core, comprising 67 per-cent of GIFT’s 62 million square feet (5.8 million square meters), residential and social buildings will take up 22 percent and 11 percent of total space, respectively. � e city also will bene� t from high-tech infrastructure, including district cooling and automated solid waste management.
� e INR780 billion project, a 50/50 joint venture
between the public Gujarat Urban Development Company Ltd. and the private Infrastructure Leas-ing & Financial Services Ltd., has bene� ted from strong government support—fortunately, given the early funding challenges it faced.
When planning began in 2007, the project team had a 10-year timeline, and the design process was completed “in record time compared to the design time for similar projects,” Mr. Kumar says. Real estate developers quickly signed memoranda of understand-ing. Soon afterward, however, the global recession hit, and promised investments did not materialize, he says. “� e global � nancial meltdown led to investors abandoning the project, leading to delay in the imple-mentation,” Mr. Kumar says. � e project team had to push back the completion date to 2022.
� e government sponsor overcame the setback by proving itself a worthy partner for private inves-tors. In 2012, a two-year U.K. review of India’s infrastructure sector lauded Gujarat’s performance in implementing public-private partnerships.
“Now,” Mr. Kumar says, “things have started moving again.”
“We designed a city where people will love to take the public transport system.” —Nitin Kumar
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Entirely new cities in China have not met the best of fates: Many have failed to attract businesses or residents. So more recent projects in the country have
focused on rebuilding existing cities—among them, Karamay and Guangzhou.
Once a small town, Karamay experienced a population boom after the discovery of oil there in the 1950s. In 2010, the city opened a competition to design a master plan that would accommodate the expected population surge from 250,000 to 1 million by 2050. NBBJ, an architecture firm, won with a plan focused on sustainable design and con-servation, including solar and wind power, storm-water management and a central business district surrounded by pedestrian-centered neighborhoods.
Launched in 2011, the project is on target for a 2017 completion of all planned buildings—yet it is not without challenges. “Karamay is in a very remote area of China,” says Kim Norman Way, principal, urban design and planning, NBBJ, Columbus, Ohio, USA. For the international team, that remote location meant three separate flights each time it needed to reach Karamay, which was “very taxing and wearing on the planning and design team,” Mr. Way says.
A lack of strong, clear communication with local clients and stakeholders has also proven prob-lematic at times. The most challenging phase of work, Mr. Way says, involved planning the city’s university campus. “Our planning was directed by city officials who did not yet have a clear under-standing of the future academic programs for this new university due to the unpredictability of the region’s growth,” he says. To get past that challenge, the project team used the city’s desired enrollment numbers along with its own experience designing universities.
Similar problems arose when planning the city’s hospital. “The city’s vision for this new, contempo-rary, state-of-the-art hospital was greater than the existing hospital staff could provide input on,” Mr.
Karamay and Guangzhou, China
CASE STUDY / City on the Horizon
“Our planning was directed by city officials who did not yet have a clear understanding of the future academic programs for this new university.” —Kim Norman Way, NBBJ, Columbus, Ohio, USA
Two views of the Karamay
city plan
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Way says. Again, the team had to combine the cli-ent’s general goal with its own expertise as well as its research on other new Chinese hospitals. In the end, the team successfully planned and designed a modern, 2,000-bed facility.
GIVE AND TAKEThe government of Guangzhou, the third biggest city in China, has under-taken a US$7.5 billion effort to revital-ize large swaths of the city, dubbed the north axis and south axis.
“Our objective was to create a sustain-able and livable area for about 500,000 people in Guangzhou, without creating a negative impact on the surroundings,” says David Masenten, senior associate, Heller Manus Architects, the San Fran-cisco, California, USA-based firm that won the redesign bids.
In 2009, the team began the first phase: the north axis. “This comprehen-sive urban core master plan of 2.4 square miles [6.2 square kilometers] redesigned
the central business district,” Mr. Masenten says. The project comprises commercial and residential buildings, a sports facility, a railway and bus trans-portation hub and extensive open spaces. With
a completion date of 2025, the south axis has fewer original features than its counterpart but more space: 15.5 square miles (40.1 square kilo-meters) of the southern city center.
Dealing with existing city structures pre-sented both opportunities and challenges. “By
choosing not to demol-ish buildings of suf-ficient quality, we were taking a very sustainable approach of saving the energy that would be lost in demolishing and recycling materials,” Mr. Masenten says. “How-ever, most of the existing buildings on site were not built to any larger master plan, thus creating a con-flict with planning goals and design.”
He credits precise planning for the mitigation of potential risks. “We care-fully phased the plan to leave some exist-ing buildings for the short term, while slating them for eventual removal,” Mr. Masenten says. “This gives the city time to re-evaluate the structure and the loca-tion in the future when the quality and needs of the building may change.”
While typical Chinese grid systems cater to cars, not to pedestrians, Mr. Masenten says, this project had sustain-able mobility as one of its core objec-tives—so Heller Manus had to convince local stakeholders to think differently. “By using examples of walkable cities, we were able to convince local planners to adopt a much smaller block network—200 to 300 meters [656 to 984 feet] as opposed to 400 to 600 meters [1,312 to 1,969 feet] in block length—which greatly enhances walkabil-ity,” he says.
“Our objective was to create a sustainable and livable area for about 500,000 people in Guangzhou, without creating a negative impact on the surroundings.” —David Masenten, Heller Manus Architects, San Francisco, California, USA
Konza Techno City, Kenya
CASE STUDY / City on the Horizon
A rendering of Guangzhou’s north axis
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water, waste, public transit and communications such as fiber-optic cable—will be accomplished through public-private partnerships.
The city is being implemented in phases, allowing time to address challenges like funding, timelines and investors. In addition, a master plan for the entire city helps keep the project’s goal clear.
Still, the team has met some obstacles—and oth-ers likely lie ahead. As project sponsors recognize, the city will result in the loss of natural habitat and the displacement and disturbance of wildlife. To minimize that negative impact—and offset poten-tial objections from public stakeholders—the team will create a 2.4-square-mile (6.2-square-kilometer) wildlife corridor.
In addition, an in-progress water and sanita-tion project had to be redesigned to accommodate Konza’s estimated water needs of 100 million liters (26.4 million gallons) each day. To ensure those needs will be met, the team must create boreholes to provide around 2 million liters (528,000 gallons) per day. PM
Kenya is pursuing what it hopes will be its answer to U.S. tech hub Silicon Val-ley: Konza Techno City, or what’s being called Silicon Savanna. Near Nairobi,
the city will rise from 7.7 square miles (20 square kilometers) of African grasslands over the next 20 years—and aims to attract about 200,000 IT jobs.
The US$14.5 billion project is a flagship initiative in Vision 2030, the government program to make Kenya a globally competitive country by 2030.
In October, the project team began construct-ing the preliminary access roads and Kenya Power started laying power lines. By building 35,000 homes as well as schools, hotels and hospitals, the development authority intends to entice IT-related businesses and jobs. While the govern-ment-backed authority is overseeing the project, infrastructure components—including power,
Konza Techno City, Kenya
CASE STUDY / City on the Horizon
Two artist renderings of Konza Techno City
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hile robots have churned out identical car parts since 1961, they haven’t yet made their mark on timber construc-tion—which often requires uniquely shaped, project-specific components.
A prototype project—the Landesgartenschau Exhi-bition Hall in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany—aimed to show not only that robots could make a lightweight timber structure, but that they could create an innova-tive, resource-efficient building that man-made design
Technical
A smart robot builds an innovative structure—with the help of the project team behind it.
alone cannot. The University of Stuttgart in Stuttgart, Germany launched the research project with funding from the European Union and the German state of Baden-Württemberg, where the university is located.
“Machines are absolutely capable of doing this type of work,” says Tobias Schwinn, an architect and research associate at the University of Stutt-gart’s Institute for Computational Design. “The hard part is programming them to do so.”
A six-axis robot—modeled after a human arm—
BY MEREDITH LANDRY
The Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall in Schwäbisch Gmünd, Germany
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would fabricate the 243 geometrically distinct plates of beech plywood that comprise the 245-square-meter (2,637-square-foot) structural shell, which resembles the shell of a peanut.
Before the robot could do that precise work, however, the project team � rst had to program it so that it knew how. � e team also had to teach the robot how to work with the other digital machines involved in the build.
“Our challenge was to make the machines intel-ligent,” says Mr. Schwinn, who served as the lead project manager. “We were interested in geometric di� erentiation designed for individual requirements, not mass production. Every piece had to be unique.”
To create the software program that would design the interlocking plates, the project team studied and emulated the microscopic connec-tions in the plate of a sand dollar—thus adopting a biomimetic approach. It took the project team six months to develop the technology to de� ne each plate’s geometry and generate the code that enables the robot to manufacture each unique plate.
“We had to create a unique robot program for each piece,” Mr. Schwinn says. “To make the pro-cess e� cient before we moved to fabrication, we developed the tools that would generate the robot code for every piece beforehand.”
Once all the tools were developed, a human oper-ator needed only about one minute to generate the code for each plate; the robot took about 20 minutes to fabricate one plate. � e robot completed all the plywood plates in just over two weeks, and the exte-rior shell was constructed in just four weeks.
� e robotic design yielded remarkable resource e� ciency: With a load-bearing structure that’s only 50 millimeters (2 inches) thick, the pavilion needed just 12 cubic meters (424 cubic feet) of timber. Only about a tenth of the project’s €425,000 budget went toward the shell’s materials.
“A building like this would be impossible without the use of robotic fabrication and digital processes,” Mr. Schwinn says. “� e robot’s kinematic � exibility is a requirement for the production of such complex and individual geometries.”
� at’s precisely what makes robotic technol-ogy so promising for timber construction: No two structures are alike.
“We can design buildings according to site- and material-speci� c requirements. We don’t have to rely on industry averages,” Mr. Schwinn says. “� ere are no cookie-cutter projects.”
� e Landesgartenschau Exhibition Hall—the � rst structure entirely made of robotically fabricated beech plywood plates—opened in mid-2014.
“Machines are absolutely capable of doing this type of work. The hard part is programming them to do so.”—Tobias Schwinn, University of Stuttgart’s Institute for Computational Design, Stuttgart, Germany
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Catching UpThe team had just 10 months to design and construct the structure, which included creating all of the code for the robot. Yet it still had to spend time managing and aligning both public and private stakeholders, such as the state’s forestry department and the companies manufacturing the timber and robot.
“There were so many different parties involved, so it took a while for everyone to get in sync,” Mr. Schwinn says. The team lost several weeks trying to get its proposal approved. Schedule adjustments had to be made to make up for that time.
“Because of the limited time frame, we moved the optimization stage to the end of the project,” Mr. Schwinn says. “Now we’re evaluating how the process unfolded and how the system behaves over time. Then we learn from it and try improve the tools that we used.”
Training the RobotsThe project team had to focus not just on the design parameters of the robot that would fabricate the intri-cate finger-joint pattern along the perimeter of each plate. The team also had to consider the design param-eters of the project’s other digitally controlled machines—such as the Hundegger Speed-Panel Machine, which cut the large plywood panels before the robot created the joints. The Hundegger also cut the pavilion’s wood-fiber insu-lation and cladding layers.
“This ultimately meant that we had to develop similar programming tech-niques for those machines more or less on the fly in order to be able to use them with the same efficiency as we programmed and used the robot,” Mr. Schwinn says.
Conventional modeling and control techniques for digitally controlled machines used in the indus-
try usually involve a large amount of manual model-ing work and plausibility checks, he says.
“Instead, we embed-ded all the modeling in our rule-based algorithms, which ensured that the
fabrication of all individual elements would adhere to the same standards,” Mr. Schwinn says. “If we hadn’t done that, this would have created a signifi-cant bottleneck that could have derailed the entire project schedule.”
“The result is as beautiful as nature itself.”
—Tobias Schwinn
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Learning From NatureWhat gives the structure its stability are 7,600 individual finger joints and their interlocking connections—made possible only through the robotic fabrication pro-cess. Visible within the building, the finger-joint connections mimic a sand dollar’s microscopic connections.
“We analyzed the sand dollar’s structural morphology, developed a model based on its fundamental principles and translated the model into a technical application: the finger-joint plywood plate structure,” Mr. Schwinn says. “The result is as beautiful as nature itself.” PM
Putting It TogetherOnce the team moved all of the parts from the fabricator’s off-site workshop to the site, assembly began.
First, the team used an already defined sequence, like a puzzle, to assemble the plywood-plate structural shell over custom-built temporary scaffolding. This step, including setting up the scaffolding, took three workers about 10 days to complete. After a crane hoisted the plates, the team screwed them into place at defined locations.
The installation of the insulation, waterproofing, cladding and interior elements took another two and half weeks to complete.
“A building like this would be impossible without the use of robotic fabrication
and digital processes.” —Tobias Schwinn
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Pavan Bapu, Gramovox, Chicago, Illinois, USA
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Whether startups or not-for- profits, resource-strapped
organizations can benefit from familiar—and not-so-familiar—
project management approaches. BY STEVE HENDERSHOT
PORTRAITS BY TODD WINTERS
Passion
Projects
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eering through an antique shop window in Chicago, Illinois, USA, Pavan Bapu had an idea for a new product: a Bluetooth-enabled stereo system that looks like a 1920s gramophone, complete with a curved, horn speaker. He loved the concept of fusing classic style to digital technology, and bought the old Magnavox he saw through the window. After building an initial prototype with a friend using that machine’s speaker and elec-tronic components he bought online, Mr. Bapu was convinced he had a winner.
One problem: He had little money and no project team to develop the pro-totype into a marketable product. Development � rms he approached quoted him between US$100,000 and US$300,000 to re� ne the idea—well beyond his budget. So Mr. Bapu, now 28, quit his advertising agency job and started the development project on his own, backed by US$50,000 he drained from his savings accounts.
“I needed to dedicate 100 percent of my time,” Mr. Bapu says. “I also had to get crafty.”
Although a rookie entrepreneur, Mr. Bapu was hardly a project manage-ment novice. He had overseen a series of successful, hybrid hardware/software projects used in advertising campaigns. Yet those projects were well sta� ed and amply funded. Mr. Bapu knew a di� erent approach would be required to com-plete his project on a shoestring budget.
In the ensuing months, Mr. Bapu made a series of choices that enabled him to build a viable product. By the end of 2013, he had completed a full prototype within his US$50,000 budget, and his new Chicago-based company, Gramovox, had attracted US$240,000 through a crowdfunding campaign on the online plat-form Kickstarter. In January 2014, Mr. Bapu unveiled his product at the annual Grammy Awards ceremony and won high-pro� le fans. Mr. Bapu announced an
“I needed to dedicate 100
percent of my time. I also had
to get crafty.”—Pavan Bapu
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additional US$650,000 in venture-capital investment last August, and the fol-lowing month his company started shipping its product.
Gramovox is no longer a � edgling startup, but there are project management strategies to be gleaned from the way Mr. Bapu developed his product despite a de� cit of cash. � ese � ve strategies are relevant to startups and not-for-pro� ts—and any other resource-strapped organization looking to execute high-stakes projects with a small team and budget.
1) Leverage passion for the project. What Mr. Bapu lacked in funding at the outset of his project, he made up for by cultivating passionate stakeholders. He generated end-user interest in the project by producing a teaser website showing o� the initial prototype. � e site was promoted by popular technology news websites, and soon Mr. Bapu had collected thousands of email addresses of interested prospective customers.
� at list helped give him leverage with prospective vendors and contractors. Some agreed to work for reduced or delayed pay. Mr. Bapu estimates that by the time he received money from the crowdfunding campaign, his partners had kicked in more than US$200,000 of unpaid labor. � is included both donated time and delayed pay.
Not every prospective partner o� ered discounts or � exible terms, but Mr. Bapu kept calling until he found those who would—including acousticians who tested the horns in anechoic chambers, prototyping shops that produced the horns, and manufacturers who would produce components for the � n-ished product.
“I found people who really believed in the product, and who also believed in what it could do for them down the road,” Mr. Bapu says. “When you’re start-ing out in the prototyping process, it’s very easy to drain all your money very
In January 2014, Mr. Bapu unveiled his product at the annual Grammy Awards ceremony and won high-pro� le fans.
Aerosmith singer Steven Tyler
“When you’re starting out in the prototyping process, it’s very easy
to drain all your money very quickly. Leverage what you have: your
passions and your determination.”—Pavan Bapu
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Note to Not-for-Profits: Make Good Use of VolunteersNot-for-profits may not have giant budgets, but they do have a resource that makes for-profit organizations envi-ous: volunteer labor. The prob-lem is that volunteer manage-ment takes time and effort to do well. Many not-for-profit project managers, stretched thin and short-staffed, find themselves too busy to make good use of volunteers.
Ms. White, a former PMI Board member, recommends writing volunteer handbooks with complete job descrip-tions, and then interviewing prospective volunteers to match them with appropri-ate opportunities and explain expectations that accompany the position.
It’s a lot of work, she acknowledges, but the result can be a set of highly skilled, dedicated workers who are donating their time. When Ms. White manages projects with volunteers, she factors in the approximate per-hour re-placement value of the labor provided by volunteers, to better quantify their impact.
quickly. Leverage what you have: your passions and your determination. Allow your vendors to empathize with you—it is key to saving costs.”
2) Maintain the team’s focus—every day. So much of good project management is about smart planning, intense focus on goals and daily discipline—not money. Startups and not-for-profit teams without contingency funds to handle unexpected challenges can look to agile approaches, such as a daily Scrum meeting, to keep things on track.
“Spend 10 to 15 minutes every morning with your team in a stand-up meeting, looking at the work that’s been done, that’s in progress and that needs to be done, focusing on today’s priorities and near-term priorities,” says Karen R.J. White, PMP, PMI Fellow, author of Practi-cal Project Management for Agile Nonprofits and adjunct professor at Marlboro College Center for Graduate and Professional Studies, Brattleboro, Vermont, USA.
“You can do that by standing in front of a visual portrayal of the project’s sched-
ule, with a flipchart or whiteboard handy. Use sticky notes placed on the schedule to mark the status of
each component. Issues are captured on the flipchart,” Ms. White says. “Any issues that arise should be taken up outside the meetings. If you do that, you’ll be surprised how quickly you can update a project’s schedule status.”
Bostjan Bregar, CEO of The 4th Office, a London, England-based maker of cloud-based collaboration software, says organizations’ biggest challenge is focusing resources on what is most critical for success. That doesn’t mean stifling innovation and adaptation, but it does mean limiting changes to stay within the project’s established scope. “Empowerment, agility and creativity must be harnessed within an organized structure that helps teams stay focused on what is important,” Mr. Bregar says.
“Spend 10 to 15 minutes every morning with your team in a stand-up meeting, looking at the work that’s been done, that’s in progress and that needs to be done.” —Karen R.J. White, PMP, PMI Fellow, Marlboro College Center for Graduate and Professional Studies, Brattleboro, Vermont, USA
“If you’re able to communicate the vision effectively, people will rally behind you.”—Pavan Bapu
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3) Consider midstream revenue sources. Mr. Bapu convinced his suppliers that their up-front investment of time would pay off later—and it has. But by the time he needed partners to begin manu-facturing components en masse, he had cash in hand via Kickstarter. This agile notion of using revenue earned midstream in order to fund the next phase of a project is gaining momentum among project managers of all stripes, according to Nick Hadjinicolaou, PMP, PgMP, director of the Global Project Management program, Torrens University, Adelaide, Australia. “Methodologies are starting to take shape where you’re getting out there and getting some returns and sales of a product, and then once you get that first revenue, you can reinvest to fund the next phase,” Mr. Hadjinicolaou says.
For manufacturers such as Gramovox, an injection of cash often comes in the form of a large pre-order from an anchor client or else a collection of small orders made possible through crowdfunding.
4) Customize the project management approach. Cash-strapped project managers at very small organizations can sometimes feel overwhelmed by A Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide), Mr. Hadjinicolaou says.
Yet startups and not-for-profits can apply the principles of strong project management—defining a project’s scope, budget and schedule, understanding stakeholders and risk factors—without employing everything they see in the PMBOK® Guide.
“It’s about fit for purpose, and taking the bits out of the standard that you need to make it work,” Mr. Hadjinicolaou says. “At a minimum, you need to be clear about the scope, even if it’s just a one-page brief defining the essentials and establishing some basic controls.”
5) Tell the project’s story. Mr. Bapu didn’t have much money in Gramovox’s early days, but he did have something else of value: a compelling story. The first part of his narrative focused on the speaker system he wanted to build: “We showed people a time machine that would allow people to stream nostalgia,” he says.
The second part of Mr. Bapu’s story aimed to get prospective partners to believe he could develop a successful product out of his idea. “You have to have a vision, and you have to believe in it and champion it with everyone you work with,” Mr. Bapu says. “If you have no money, that might be all you have at your
disposal. But if you’re able to communicate the vision effectively, people will rally behind you.”
Some of his success stems from communi-cating that vision for the product to partners. “They were sold on the story,” Mr. Bapu says, “so that that they almost felt that if they were to change too much it would ruin the narrative. That’s the power of developing a crystallized vision and communicating it so it resonates.” PM
“Spend 10 to 15 minutes every morning with your team in a stand-up meeting, looking at the work that’s been done, that’s in progress and that needs to be done.” —Karen R.J. White, PMP, PMI Fellow, Marlboro College Center for Graduate and Professional Studies, Brattleboro, Vermont, USA
“At a minimum, you need to be clear about the scope, even if it’s just a one-page brief defining the essentials and establishing some basic controls.” —Nick Hadjinicolaou, PMP, PgMP, Torrens University, Adelaide, Australia
“If you’re able to communicate the vision effectively, people will rally behind you.”—Pavan Bapu
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RIGHTSTARTING O UT
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Early-career project practitioners share their
stories of breaking into the fi eld, and succeeding in it.
BY RACHEL BERTSCHE
Young job candidates hammered by the still-linger-ing e� ects of the global economic crisis have been � ocking to a booming profession: project manage-ment. � ree in � ve hiring managers say interest in project management careers among younger job applicants has grown over the past decade, accord-ing to PMI’s Pulse of the Profession® In-Depth Study: Talent Management.
Fortunately, a growing number of opportunities await them: Between 2010 and 2020, 15.7 million new project management roles will be created glob-ally across seven project-intensive industries, accord-ing to PMI’s Project Management Talent Gap Report. Still, younger candidates wanting to break into the � eld must learn how to convince hiring managers they’ve got what it takes—and how to distinguish themselves from the rest of the pack.
Four early-career project practitioners share how they began their careers, o� ering practical insights from the frontlines.
RIGHTSTARTING O UT
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Position: Project management o� cer, BNP Paribas, a bank and � nancial services company in Singapore
Hitting the Books: It took Mr. Vadlakonda two years to break into project management. He gradu-ated from college with an IT degree and says it was hard, at � rst, to persuade his higher-ups to consider him for project management roles. “I always wanted a project management career, but my supervisor at the time didn’t encourage it. I was told, ‘You were a technical graduate, so you have to work in a techni-cal environment for a period and move to a project management career eventually,’” he says.
“My passion helped me more than anything else,” says Mr. Vadlakonda, who did what students do well—he studied. “I got my Certi� ed Associate in Project Management (CAPM)® certi� cation, I kept learning, and eventually got my � rst job in project management at UBS.” � at position, a front o� ce credit desk sup-port analyst, was partly technical and partly project management, he says, but it got his foot in the door.
Helping Out: Studying project management helped Mr. Vadlakonda land his � rst job in the � eld—but it wasn’t enough on its own. He also volunteered. Determined to move into project management, he started volunteering with the technology division of
his local PMI chapter—gaining valuable experience along the way. “When I started interviewing for project positions, my volunteer experience stood out.” An interviewer at Citi who eventually became his manager drilled him on his volunteer tasks. “� ey weren’t huge tasks, just coordinating people and projects, but it showed that I knew how to com-municate and how project management works.”
After he landed the position in Citi’s project management o� ce (PMO), Mr. Vadlakonda’s man-ager told him it was his volunteer experience, more than his professional background, that earned him the job. “He thought to himself, ‘Even if he’s a new guy and less experienced, he must be passionate about project management because he doesn’t even get paid and still does it.’”
Making the Most of Social Media: To keep his network growing, Mr. Vadlakonda connects on LinkedIn with each new person he meets at profes-sional events. He also participates in LinkedIn proj-ect management groups, joins in discussion threads and reads project management blogs. “Whenever I get a connection suggestion from LinkedIn, I look at people’s pro� les and send them an invite explaining my career, asking about theirs and o� ering ways we could potentially help each other,” he says.
Bhanu Vadlakonda, CAPM, 29 years old
When I started interviewing for project positions, my volunteer experience stood out. They weren’t huge tasks, but it showed that I knew how to communicate and how project management works.”—Bhanu Vadlakonda, CAPM
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Position: Mobile � nancial services project special-ist, Millicom International Cellular, a telecommu-nications and media company in Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Bolivia
Speaking Up: In 2011, Mr. Soto was interviewing for a quality assurance position when the
interviewer asked him about his other interests. “I told her I wanted to go into project management one day,” he says. “She was very surprised” to hear him express interest in a di� erent � eld, “but it turned out they had an opening for a chief project o� cer assistant.” � e
organization hadn’t yet begun interview-ing for the position. Mr. Soto became an
early candidate for the job—and even-tually got it. � e experience taught
him that, even when inter-viewing for entry-level
positions, being clear about your ultimate professional objec-tive can help bring long-term goals into the near term.
Best Networking Tip: Attend confer-
ences and listen closely to the speakers, but make sure to arrive early and stay late. “Make time before and after every conference you attend to talk to people—that’s more important to your career than whatever topic the speech or presentation is about,” Mr. Soto says. “It’s very important to network with people who have more project management experience and thus more knowledge than you.” Not only can you learn from these connections, he says, but they might remember you when a position opens up in their organization.
It worked for Mr. Soto. He landed the interview for his current job through his networking connections.
Standing Out: Before any class, interview or net-working event, Mr. Soto does his research. “When you network, you need to have something to talk about,” he says. “I read the Guide to the Project Management Body of Knowledge (PMBOK® Guide)twice, and I’ve read all the standards from PMI. You need to be able to show your project management knowledge when you network, so you need to read more than the people you’re talking with to over-come the lack of experience.”
Learning as much as you can on your own, before a class or conference, is the most e� cient use of your time, Mr. Soto says. “� en you can ask speci� c questions, and good questions always make you look better and enjoy the class.”
Cristian Soto, 28 years old
Speaking Up: In 2011, Mr. Soto was interviewing for a quality assurance position when the
interviewer asked him about his other interests. “I told her I wanted to go into project management one day,” he says. “She was very surprised” to hear him express interest in a di� erent � eld, “but it turned out they had an opening for a chief project o� cer assistant.” � e
organization hadn’t yet begun interview-ing for the position. Mr. Soto became an
early candidate for the job—and even-tually got it. � e experience taught
him that, even when inter-viewing for entry-level
positions, being clear about your ultimate professional objec-tive can help bring long-term goals into the near term.
Best Networking Tip:
It’s very important to network with people who have more project management experience and thus more knowledge than you.”—Cristian Soto
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Position: Engineer, NNE Pharmaplan, an engineer-ing and consulting company in the life science industry in Brussels, Belgium
Learning Before Doing: As a 21-year-old university student in Canada, Mr. Mroz initiated and led Quo Vadis, a conference to empower young leaders in the Polish-Canadian community. “It was project management at a student level,” Mr. Mroz says. “If you’re organizing an event, even as a student, you have to choose a revenue model and � gure out how
you’re going to generate pro� t or break even. And if you don’t break even, what are you going to do? Are you going to share the risk with another organiza-tion? Are you going to mitigate it in XYZ fashion?”
� ese are classic project management concerns, he says, but in a more friendly learning environ-ment than working for a client, where big mistakes could cost you your job. “It was through extracur-ricular activities like Quo Vadis that I learned I’m pretty good at—and really enjoy—planning, orga-nizing events and leading teams,” he says. “And
Kamil Mroz, 27 years old
My mentor taught me that I need to delegate tasks and empower my team in order to take some of the pressure off myself.”—Kamil Mroz
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STUDY GUIDEEven students who have a year or two before they head into the workforce can take steps now to make themselves more attractive to employers when the time comes.
Join the Club“It’s never too early to start investing in your future,” says Kamil Mroz, engineer, NNE Pharmaplan, Brussels, Belgium. “The most important thing you can do as a young person who wants to get into project manage-ment is to get involved in student activities.”
When students take on leadership roles in campus organizations, they schedule meetings, organize events and coordinate conferences—learning fundamental skills around managing stakeholders, schedules and budgets.
“You’ll learn about yourself, you’ll learn about your peers, and you’ll learn where in the scope of project management you might be the best fi t,” Mr. Mroz says. “Then you can bring value to your profession because you can relate your work back to something you’ve already done as a student.”
Get CompetitiveProject management competitions can help aspiring project practitioners make a name for themselves. The Intercollegiate Project Management Triathlon, the Enac-tus competitions and PMI Western Michigan Chapter’s THE Project all give student leaders the chance to create a project plan and show off their management skills in front of experienced practitioners.
Make ConnectionsTo get a head start on networking, would-be project managers should get involved with their local PMI chap-ters. They’ll get face time with local project managers, connect with potential mentors and fi nd opportunities to volunteer—while bulking up their résumés.
Study UpThe PMI Educational Foundation (pmief.org) offers free learning resources for students that reinforce project management terminology, skills and techniques. The site also offers info on scholarships and grants, a newsletter and inspiring stories from the project front lines.
that experience came in handy when I started applying for jobs.”
Most Valuable Connection: While organizing the Quo Vadis conference, Mr. Mroz connected with a project manager who lent his expertise and served as a mentor. “A mentor doesn’t have to be somebody formal that you see on a rigid basis,” he says. “It could be someone you meet for co� ee informally, with whom you run through the di� cult decisions you’re facing in your career.” Mr. Mroz says he still consults his mentor, who advises him on planning his project management future.
Best Advice from His Mentor: It’s not all about you. “Young project managers often want to take on a lot of responsibility in order to prove them-selves,” Mr. Mroz says. “You want to control everything. You want to be the person making all the decisions and doing all the work. My men-tor taught me that I need to delegate tasks and empower my team in order to take some of the pressure o� myself.”
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that I was passionate about building client relation-ships and delivering tangible results.”
Tip for Would-Be Interns: Specialize—� nd your project management niche. “If you want to be an interactive software project manager, maybe there’s an internship available with a company that special-izes in interactive software,” she says. “Become an expert in that � eld. Learn, for example, how an iOS application gets submitted to the app store. � at way, when a project manager opportunity comes up, you already know how interactive technologies work.”
Best Lesson From Her First Proj-ect Management Job: Don’t be a hero. “In project manage-ment, we have a tendency to work through issues ourselves,” she says. � is is especially true, Ms. Vigil says, of younger project practitioners still trying to prove themselves. “It’s so important to raise your hand when you are experiencing issues with your project to put some visibility on it. Other, more experienced people are always willing to help and say, ‘Here’s what has worked for me.’” PM
Position: Senior software project manager, � e Nerdery, a developer-driven interactive production company in Minneapolis, Minnesota, USA
Putting Vacation Time to Work: During college, Ms. Vigil took internships that gave her hands-on project management experience, even though it wasn’t called project management. During one school break, she worked as a production manage-ment intern at Hubbard Broadcasting, an ABC tele-vision a� liate in St. Paul, Minnesota, USA. “I didn’t realize it at the time, but I was managing small proj-ects every day,” she says. “I helped produce a show
on the hottest new restaurants and events in Minneapolis, so
I had to discover a topic, interview the people, coor-
dinate the shoots, stay on top of the budget.” � e internship, along with another at MTV/Viacom, made her realize she wanted to become a proj-
ect manager. “I learned through my internships
Paige Vigil, 26 years old
I learned through my internships that I was passionate about building client relationships and delivering tangible results.”—Paige Vigil
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DIVE DEEP!For more insight, advice and actionable tips on empower-ing your career right from the start, head to PMI’s Career Central at pmi.org/professional-development/career-central.aspx
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DIVE DEEP!For more insight, advice and actionable tips on empower-ing your career right from the start, head to PMI’s Career Central at pmi.org/professional-development/career-central.aspx
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An Island Unto ItselfA French project team manages competing currents—of water and stakeholder concerns—to restore Mont-Saint-Michel’s maritime character.BY MATT ALDERTON
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ime has been kind to Mont-Saint-Michel. More than 1,000
years ago, monks began build-ing a monumental abbey atop the tidal island 1 kilome-ter (0.6 miles) off the coast of Normandy, France. But although the abbey is well preserved, the UNESCO World Heritage site ceased to be an island in 1879, when a causeway to the mainland was built. It was paved in the 20th century, when tourists began flocking to the site.
Thanks to a 20-year US$300 million restoration project concluding this year, Mont-Saint-Michel’s original maritime character is back.
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“Since the 19th century, the maritime environment of Mont has been strongly disrupted by human intervention,” says Anne Garçon, head of the Tourist Information Centre, Syndicat Mixte Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel, Beauvoir, France. � e consortium of regional governments is the project’s sponsor. “Land closed in on the Mont with the construction of polders—fertile agricultural land reclaimed from the bay. � e Mont lost its status as an island.”
Reversing centuries of encroachment is no easy task. Faced with a slew of challenges—environmental, cultural, political—the project succeeded largely
The greatest challenge … is to achieve changes in the uses and habits of Mont-Saint-Michel. The conditions of access for those who live and work in the Mont have changed signifi cantly.” —Laurent Beauvais, Syndicat Mixte Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel and Regional Council of Basse-Normandie, Normandy, France
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due to the team’s commitment to breaking down silos to ensure collaboration among specialized contractors.
“In the highly compartmentalized modern world, knowledge-sharing during a project is not assured,” says Luc Weizmann, a Paris-based architect who was part of the project team. “But it’s essential to overcome conflicts.”
A Holy Site, Modified by ManMont-Saint-Michel dates back to the 8th century, when the bishop of Avranches built a church dedicated to the archangel Michael. Two hundred years later, the Duke of Normandy gifted the Mont—at that time accessible only during low tide—to Benedictine monks, who built a Romanesque abbey crown-ing the island’s summit. Below it, a medieval village once populated by pilgrims now hosts approximately 3 million tourists every year.
The marshy setting they encounter while visiting is a modern creation. When the French began reclaiming coastal lands for farming in the 19th century, Ms. Garçon says, they constructed dikes to divert local rivers. With less water flowing into the bay surrounding the Mont, it became surrounded by silt. The situation was exacerbated by construction of the causeway, which accelerated the deposition of sediment at the foot of the Mont. Salt marshes took root. The problem worsened when another dam was constructed in 1969 to protect farmland from high tides.
In 1995, the French government hatched a restoration plan, Ms. Garçon says,
“Since the 19th century, the maritime
environment of Mont has been
strongly disrupted by human
intervention.”—Anne Garçon, Syndicat Mixte Baie
du Mont-Saint-Michel, Beauvoir, France
Mont-Saint-Michel as seen from neighboring farmland
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“because without intervention, the Mont would lose its maritime character in less than 50 years.”
The Two-Part ProjectFollowing a decade-long study phase, the project commenced in 2005 with two principal objectives. The first was to allow tidal waters to once again reach all the way around the Mont and prevent silt from building up around the island. The second was to move the tourist infrastructure surrounding the site—which had included 15 hectares (37 acres) of parking lots on the causeway—to the mainland.
Meeting both objectives required a holistic approach to planning and execu-tion, according to Mr. Weizmann. “Success depended on many factors—envi-ronmental, functional, symbolic and cultural, as well as economic,” he says.
The project remains on schedule and on budget, despite major challenges in each of these domains.
Mr. Weizmann encountered the first hurdles in 2006, when his team began building a new dam at the mouth of the Couesnon River. It captures river water and tidal seawater and expels it into the bay twice a day, flushing out built-up sediment. “Its location presented great difficulties,” Mr. Weizmann says. “Although the dam is set back from the open sea—less exposed than it would have been in the bay itself—its design required consideration of both the tides and river floods, and sometimes violent weather.”
“In the highly compartmentalized modern world, knowledge-sharing during a project is not assured. But it’s essential to overcome conflicts.”—Luc Weizmann, Paris, France
About 3 million tourists visit Mont-Saint-Michel each year.
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In spite of high tides, strong currents and an unstable seabed, construction progressed. Temporary protection devices such as booms and steel sheet piling, which reinforced the ground to keep the site accessible throughout the dam’s three-year construction, were critical for success.
“During project design, studies took into account all the constraints of loca-tion, functionality and access to the site,” Mr. Weizmann says. “So during the implementation, the project did not change.”
People ProblemsUpon successful completion of the dam in 2009, the project team shifted its focus to creating new tourism infrastructure servicing the Mont. � is includes a new pedestrian footbridge replacing the causeway, parking lots and reception facilities, as well as a new shuttle bus system.
� is construction phase was riddled with stakeholder challenges, rather than engineering challenges. � ey included opposition from local shopkeepers and cyclists, who objected to changes in how the Mont is accessed; criminal pro-ceedings against the local mayor, who was accused of corruption for trying to locate shuttle bus stops near shops and restaurants he owns; and labor strikes by abbey sta� , who successfully lobbied for their own dedicated shuttle buses to the Mont, separate from tourist vehicles.
“� e greatest challenge of the operation is to achieve changes in the uses and habits of Mont-Saint-Michel,” says Laurent Beauvais, president of the Syndicat Mixte Baie du Mont-Saint-Michel and chairman of the Regional Council of Basse-Normandie in Normandy, France. “Indeed, the conditions of access for those who live and work in the Mont have changed signi� cantly.”
Satisfying critics has required constant communication with local stake-holders. To arrive at solutions satisfactory to all, the Syndicat Mixte estab-lished a consultation group of hoteliers, restaurateurs, tourist guides and cycling and equine associations, among others. The organization “conducts regular adjustments to finalize the project and make it consistent with the
The Making of the Mont
■ 708: According to legend, the archan-gel Michael appears to the bishop of Avranches and in-structs him to build a church on Mont-Saint-Michel.
■ 966: The Duke of Normandy gifts the Mont to Benedictine monks; work on Mont-Saint-Michel Abbey begins in 1017 and continues for 500 years.
■ 1337-1453: During the Hundred Years War, the English assault the Mont three times. It is the only terri-tory in western and northern France to suc-cessfully resist English attack.
■ 1804: Napoleon turns the Mont into a state prison, which it remains until 1863.
■ 1879: A causeway is built connecting the mainland to the Mont, which was declared a historic monument fi ve years earlier. This obstructs the fl ow of tides, caus-ing sedimentary buildup around the island.
700 900 1100 1300 1800
buildup around the
During project design, studies
took into account all the constraints
of location, functionality and access to the site,
so during the implementation,
the project did not change.”
—Luc Weizmann
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concrete needs of the daily life of Mont-Saint-Michel,” Mr. Beauvais says.Its approach to stakeholder management has paid o� : Construction of the
parking lots, reception facilities and pedestrian footbridge was completed on schedule in 2014. � is year, old structures (including the causeway) will be deconstructed, and areas a� ected by construction will be restored.
� e project’s � nal stage will commence post-2015 with the use of hydro-sedimentary lasers to measure silt and sedimentation around the Mont. “A new phase will begin after 2015: monitoring of work, whether from an environmen-tal point of view or in terms of operation and maintenance,” Mr. Beauvais says.
Teamwork Turns the TideLast July, crews completed the footbridge nearly connecting Mont-Saint-Michel to the mainland. One hundred and twenty meters (393 feet) from the Mont’s main entrance, visitors encounter a ford that can be traversed only during low tide—the same way crossings were made in the 8th century. Just a few weeks later, exceptionally high tides turned the Mont into an island for the � rst time in more than 130 years.
� e momentous occasion—when sea � nally kissed sea again—was the prod-uct of technical problem solving, certainly. Mostly, though, the project’s success was a result of teamwork, according to Mr. Beauvais.
“� e project’s di� erent partners meet regularly as a steering committee on all topics,” Mr. Beauvais says. “� ese meetings bring together all the partners involved around the same table. As the project’s owner, the Syndicat Mixte delivers progress reports. It’s these meetings and the technical committees aris-ing therefrom that solve the technical problems encountered.”
Just as important, the steering committee addressed cultural problems. “� e local project managers stayed abreast of the needs of residents of Mont-Saint-Michel. � is has been essential,” Mr. Beauvais continues. “� e fact that all local political partners are involved has really helped to maintain dialogue so that all needs were taken into account throughout these 20 years of study and construction.” PM
■ 1969: The French build another dam to protect local farmland from high tides.
■ 1995: The French govern-ment commits to restoring the Mont’s mari-time character, beginning a 10-year study and project planning phase.
■ 2005: With fi nancial backing from the European Union, the project kicks off.
■ 2009: Work on the dam across the Couesnon River concludes, and desilting of the seabed around the Mont commences.
■ 2014: Construction of a pedestrian footbridge and mainland park-ing lots and reception facilities is completed.
■ 2015: The cause-way connecting the Mont to the mainland will be demolished.
1900 2000
The fact that all local political partners are involved has really helped to maintain dialogue so that all needs were taken into account throughout these 20 years of study and construction.” —Laurent Beauvais
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VOICES In the Trenches
Blame Game Look to your organization’s strategy and processes to prevent project failure.By Grace Willis, PMP
Grace Willis, PMP, is a Scrum master within the product support team of MedAssets, Saddle River, New Jersey, USA.
PROJECT MANAGERS OFTEN TAKE THE FALL for failures, even though a project consists of many working parts. But the real culprit is often a lack of strategy and processes to support a project’s suc-cessful delivery.
In my career, I have not seen executives realize, much less acknowledge, the inherent bond among strategy, process and projects. Instead, I have been assigned to projects that were incomplete ideas.
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Tasks are delayed, and team members begin to skip meetings and conference calls—or worse, they attend but are mentally absent. Eventually, the vendor collects money for a bad product or service, and the project manager is blamed.
More than a project manager failure, this fiasco is due to a lack of strategy and process.
No project should ever make it past the proposal stage without being aligned to a corporate strategy. Corporate strategy is a well-thought-out directive of where the organization is headed in order to
serve its market. The initiatives required in order to put this strategy into effect are then articulated and delegated. A corporate strategy is essential before any potential projects are born, and strategy drives not only the projects but also their scope and timing.
Next, before the project begins, a feasibility analysis should result in identification of existing processes. Does the organization even have pro-cesses? If so, how do they potentially support or hinder the project? What are the gaps? If there are existing gaps that would hinder progress, can they be addressed?
A process analysis needs to be performed by a Six Sigma expert. Process analysis is critical to successful project implementation as it allows for a conscientious and comprehensive review of the infrastructure in place that transcends relevant groups, like business and IT. Variations across internal groups and regional and international locations should also be taken into consideration if this is an enterprise-wide project. The practicality and likelihood of successfully bridging these pro-cess gaps pre-launch need to be identified, as these gaps represent risk.
Then of course, there is the real work involved. Get processes on track before even thinking about project kickoff. It is amazing to me that many proj-ects get off the ground, even with a feasibility study having purportedly been conducted, when there was no consideration of either strategy or process.
Strategy, process and projects are inextricably interwoven. Ignore any one of these elements, and you have set yourself up for failure. Only by respecting these ties that bind can you avert blame and your organization avoid having its projects join the large percentage of projects that fail to meet their objectives, are delivered late, exceed their budgets or get scrapped altogether. PM
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CLOSING Credit
For hundreds of years, people have been dreaming up ways to cross the River Thames in London, England. The Garden Bridge will likely be the city’s most unusual river crossing for years to come.
With two mushroom-like support columns and a lush covering of plants and trees, the pedestrian bridge will be a forest walkway that looks like something plucked from a fairy tale. It has “no purpose other than to recreate the soul” for visitors, London Mayor Boris Johnson told The Guardian.
Designer Thomas Heatherwick envisions a place to get lost in. “It’s not just a bridge with green sideburns,” he told The Guardian. “It’s a proper garden. It has the potential to be the slowest way to cross the river, with intimate moments and a lingering scale.”
The £175 million project has substantial public and private support, but critics say it’s trying to solve a problem that doesn’t exist: The Garden Bridge’s proposed site is 300 meters (984 feet) from an existing crossing.
PROJECT: London’s Garden BridgeBUDGET: £175 million
SCHEDULE: 2015-2018LENGTH: 360 meters (1,181 feet)
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—Thomas Heatherwick, designer, The Garden Bridge, London, England
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