Modern projects of all kinds face innumerable challenges due to increasing scale, complexity, and stakeholder numbers. Failure rates, particularly for industrial and construction projects, have been on the order of 50-70% due to missed milestones, cost overruns, poor quality and dissatisfied customers or high-influencing stakeholders.
If we are a little more proactive, with early engagement with stakeholders, application of Lean processes, and the integration of Sustainability aspects, we can avoid many of these issues.
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Everyone views waste as a cost centre. We move rock out of the way to get the good stuff. The shiny metals, the high-value gemstones, the money makers.
But what if we've had it wrong all this time and we just haven't been seeing the full potential held within the volumes of rock that we move?
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2018 marks the 20th anniversary of my undergraduate degree in geological engineering, as well as my whole-hearted dive into the mining world. I’ve watched many fantastic ideas, methodologies and technologies come forth, often to be squashed and put back on a shelf, and it's time that this stops!!
I’ve decided that it’s time to go big or go home, to start shouting about the possibilities, to start connecting the right collaborators and helping with finding the right solutions for big risk and sustainability-related opportunities.
Will you be a supporter?
Read MoreOver the past 10-15 years, I’ve been working at the crossroads of what could be two very distinct career paths. Both necessary for our ways of living, and also for our future generations. These are mining, and sustainability - two worlds that don't often move hand in hand.
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With a look at project management challenges, it seems it doesn't matter what sector the projects are in. They all face the same issues...
Without appropriate engagement and communications, project teams are bound to miss critical requirements for their project – and as such, develop an incomplete scope to proceed.
Without ensuring we are all well-aligned to the ultimate project goals, and to understanding when it might be okay to shift strategies to get there, we set ourselves up for failure.
Without taking a staged and iterative approach to our projects, and without a willingness to adjust scope and make alternate decisions, as more information is obtained, it is then inevitable that the ultimate goals of the project are put at risk.
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Environmental Compliance. Beyond Compliance. Leading Performer. Responsible Operations. Responsible Procurement. Cradle-to-Grave Material Management. All markers on the path of continual improvement and environmental sustainability.
A new initiative, headed by Forum for the Future, has a goal “to encourage more companies to make ambitious Net Positive commitments, then equip them with the tools to turn those goals into reality.”
This newest initiative, combining both environment and social, "opens its arms to all organisations committed to becoming Net Positive"…and this one seems to be setting the bar the highest, suggesting that there should not be an allowance for impacts in one place, that are offset by benefits elsewhere. It sounds inspirational, something we should all strive for.
With most performance measurement indices, it is typical to place bounds around what is being measured and reported on. This is done to show where an organisation has "control" over its operations.
But the premise behind Net Positive is that you would measure outside of the operational bounds - to show how an organisation will "put back more into society, the environment and the global economy than it takes out."
So, this commentary is situated around this premise, and the inconsistency around these goals and the general practices of the purveyors of sustainability.
Will the initiative fly as defined?
Or will it need to be bound in a box?
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How often have you been approached by social or environment-minded folks about integrating sustainability into your projects, designs and systems?
Never? Only on particular projects? More and more? Or all the time?
If you were asked to do this, would you know where to start?
Would you understand how to educate and gain the most traction with your teams?
This article highlights the necessity of making positive changes to our PMO guidance, and to integrating sustainability into our design and project management practices.
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Collaboration seems to be a word thrown around quite a bit. But what does it really mean and why do it? How successful is the practice being implemented? And what avenues are there to do so?
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