Green Project Management?

 I was reviewing some old files and found this series of articles on "Green Project Management". Now with all the media focus on the Deepwater Horizon oil spill catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, I thought it may be timely to take a look at this topic.

Basically, the proponents of "GreenPM" suggest it is the support of an organization's environmental policy through its project management process. It is an interesting idea, but I view it a little differently, making the environment a stakeholder, as is often the case on a construction project, achieves much the same results during the execution phase. Environmental protection is often strongly enforced during these phases in any case...

Where "GreenPM" perhaps offers more change to the process is in the softer skill areas and supply chains, where people may not be so frontline in thinking of the environment, or in execution of IT or office based projects for example. The point is not to make every decision in favour of the most environmentally friendly in a blanket approach, but that the environment is added as one of the key evaluation criteria throughout all the decisions.

I also recently found this article which asks if the scenario of the Gulf oil spill could happen in mining. It is worth a read as it basically contends, yes, the same scenario with such pressured decision making could certainly occur in the mining industry. I would also liken this to the many reports about poor organizational communications (internal and external) and "groupthink" that are oft cited as prime factors in the 1986 space shuttle Challenger disaster, see here and here for more background, plus a short video. If this report is to be believed, there was much organizational chaos onboard the rig and during the aftermath, with legislators playing a significant part with exceptions granted and slow decisions.

And whilst the environmental impacts and economic damage may be tremendous and felt for years to come in the affected regions, let us not forget that eleven workers died in the initial blaze. If the current rhetoric can be believed and this disaster could be the clarion call for mainstream support of renewables and alternative energy sources, the environment will ultimately benefit from this situation, the workers are, however, lost forever.

Are mining people creative? Part Deux.

Ok, so it seems that my post about creativity in mining generated quite a few comments when linked to a discussion in one of the mining groups on linkedin.com, here, if you're a member.

The discussion seemed to swing around three types of comments: 1, yes they are creative and here is some background; 2, of course they are creative and taking a bit of umbrage at raising any question that they possibly could not be; 3, mining people are creative, but they are constantly waging a battle to stop their creativity being stifled by more risk averse upper management - aren't managers people too? I will leave that for you to decide, it could be subjective!

If there is any doubt, I too weigh heavily on the side that mining people are creative and speaking from my own background with engineer types, it is almost a default setting for problem solving. I also agree upper management needs convincing, that is one of the reasons they are there, to be gatekeepers for decisions. In fact, sometimes the way you try to get support for your idea can involve some creative strategies too. As I mentioned in the initial blog post, over the years I have also noticed that engineers very often have an interest in photography, but maybe that just appeals to a suppressed geeky stereotype of engineers tinkering with gadgets wearing pocket protectors?

My favorite comments though were those that loosely said: "Geologists are the most creative as they work with intangibles to believe in an orebody they cannot see. They have to believe."  Creative? Belief? Delusion? Not to knock geologists, but there is a fine line between belief with persistence and being wrong.

The discussion then went on to discuss the green challenges mining faces, which is a very good example of where we need creative solutions AND creative ways to propose new schemes and technologies.

What do you think?

Network, to "net" work

Networking, greasy palm pushing? Geeky social media by some loner type?  Self-serving and full of cliques like the old boys club?

Not necessarilly. One of the Project Management Institute's blogs has an interesting article written by Jim De Piante titled Unselfish Networking.  It also aligns pretty well with Mitch Joel of Twist Image, whose book I am currently enjoying reading.

Basically with the ongoing online revolution, networking is more important than ever before and we all have our own personal brand to promote (and protect). One of the core tenets of social media, or any other kind really, of networking has become that it definitely must not be self-serving, at least explicitly.

Consider blogs or websites that you routinely visit (feel free to subscribe to this blog if you like - rats, that sounded too self-serving...) and think about why you visit them. More often than not it comes down to the old rule that "content is king". Graphics and media are nice, but they are not the whole message, the content, the information being shared is what keeps people coming back - if it is constantly kept fresh. 

The quality of the content is also important. Unless it was an entertainment driven site, I'd take it as a given that you expect the content to be either factual or clearly stated if subjective (disclosure - this is just my opinion). Equally important when enaging in social media or other networking agree Mitch Joel and Jim De Piante are to not try and sell. 

By offering expertise or valued opinions and dialogue to your community, you are automatically raising the profile of your brand. A perfect example here is the Hard Rock Miner's Handbook. This was a not for profit publication provided by engineering consultant McIntosh Engineering (now Stantec) and was available as a hardcopy, followed by a CD and online versions. It has been a great success and certainly drives the firm's search rankings high. Indeed the original collator / editor / contributor even has a derived dictionary of mining terms on the mining industry online portal site Infomine here. Now the info within is quite generic, but it is certainly helpful at times and perhaps more importantly, it is a standard download for industry students, establishing the resource, the brand and the altruistic sentiment from their early exposure to the industry.


A similar models applies to volunteering or running local branches or chapters of associations or running an online group or forum. The exposure and boost to your reputation can be significant and you are actually just giving back to your peers, but you are positioning yourself as a pro-active leader.

Giant steps are what you take, walking on the moon...

(photocredit: The Sudbury Star)

This article underlines some of the creativity that mining people can demonstrate.


NORCAT (Northern Centre for Advanced Technology) is involved in testing rovers for lunar (or Martian?) missions in the crater of a volcano in Hawaii - yes, I imagine that was a tough project to attract people to work away on!

Commendably the team even used a student chef to help prepare meals, which seems quite a fair way to assign plum roles, rather than the usual cronies.

One of the things I found most impressive was the modular multi-tasking of the rovers. I wasn't surprised they can be equipped with a scoop or drill or ground penetrating radar. What surpised me the most as a cute adaptation to the expected environment was the scoop can be used to transport material for transport to a solar concentrator (think magnifiying glasses and ants - yes, I know, it's terrible, but own up, you've done it) where water and oxygen is cooked out of the rock.

In-situ resource utilization (ISRU) is where its at apparently. Think of it as extreme sustainability. The article estimates that to "land one litre of water on the moon would cost a space agency $100,000 a bottle".

Now mentioning ants was intentional above as the rovers are programmed to work in groups in a collaborative manner like ants do. They adapt to problems or mission issues as a team and if one rover is immobilized, the others will push it out of the way.

Oh yes and if anyone is in the market for it, NORCAT even makes and sells its own lunar regolith (moon dust) substitute, although like the real thing with dangers if inhaled and retailing for $40,000 per ton it may only be found in the most discerning sand lots...

Get your cameras at the ready!

The Snowden Mining photo competition is on again.

The standard of the photos has always been very good and often by the engineers etc. themselves. Actually, photography seems to be quite a popular hobby amongst engineers, maybe it appeals to their creative flair for problem solving, or maybe they're just geeks?

I saw a presentation yesterday in fact on the Canadian mining industry for CEMI (Centre of Excellence for Mining Innovation) that described the importance of mining to civilisation. It showed an interesting graph produced by an agency in the south of Ontario which demonstrated that "creatives" were found in high numbers around the major southern urban centres, but Sudbury ranked amongst the lowest for creative talent.

Now those of you who have been to Sudbury may be nodding your heads in agreement at this point, but the presenter made a good point that it all depends how you define creativity. If you choose cultural creativity, i.e. arts, then you are aligning yourself with the study, but if instead you take it to include innovative problem solving and the adoption and refinement of new techniques and processes, then the case for Sudbury's ranking to be improved becomes a little more reasonable.

I remember an applied geology professor opening a series of lectures on structural geology with the phrase, roughly recalled as best I can: "We are all artists and rock is the medium through which you have chosen to express your creativity."