Beach Haven

Bibliography
​Vifell, A. C., & Soneryd, L. (2013). Organizing Matters: How 'the Social Dimension' Gets Lost in Sustainability Projects. IEEE Engineering Management Review, 41(2), 104-113.

Review by Michael Beach

The authors examine sociality in sustainability projects from a specific framework of their own design. “We argue that the way sustainability projects are organized will affect how the social dimension is taken into consideration” (Vifell & Soneryd, 2013, p. 104). They describe projects based on three dimensions they call pillars: economic, ecological, and social. They note how organizations often have set project group forms and structures so reflection on whether those set social forms meet project requirements of the task at hand “is a rare phenomenon” (Ibid.). The authors assert that “a practice cannot be fully sustainable until all three dimensions are fulfilled” (Vifell & Soneryd, 2013, p. 106) meaning the three pillars, but they don’t really define the dimensions beyond their basic titles.

In order to examine the social dimension, they examine two case studies in Sweden: The Action Plan 2010 to Increase Organic Consumption and Production of Food Products and A Safe Radiation Environment. The first is a non-governmental campaign by The Ecological Forum to encourage increased ecological food production and a varied agricultural landscape. The second is a government response by The Swedish Radiation Protection Authority to public opposition to increasing 3G cellular services throughout the country of Sweden. Yes, this is about 3G cellular, but remember this study is from 2013.

The authors assume tasks associated with the two case studies are organized into projects, and that the sociality of groups working on the projects are reflected in the group ‘mind-set’. They examine how such mind-sets are defined and incorporated into project teams. The forms of mind-set they define are: open or narrow framing, action orientation, participation, and lastly knowledge gathering and production. The authors spend several pages defining in their own way what they mean for each of these dimensions. The paper then reviews each of the four dimensions are they are exhibited in the two specific cases.

Open/Narrow Framing - In the food production case, certain farming approaches were excluded as they became politically charged in Sweden. As a result, some specific groups advocating these farming approaches were also excluded. This leads the authors of this paper to put the effort more on the side of narrow project scope definition. There was no definition of ‘sustainable’ given as part of the project charter which made this part of the process more on the open side. In the radiation case, social sustainability was never specifically addressed. The points to be addressed by the project were given in a very specific list. The list related to already ongoing projects, so the authors consider that project as operating in a narrower frame.

Action Orientation - This question is couched by contrasting what might be done as opposed to encouragement to do what has already been decided to be done. In the food case, there had been several failed projects previous to this one. The steering group of the first version of this project resigned as a result. The new project focused on moving forward to finish the original plan, so clearly a desire to take some measurable action as a project group and not just encourage others to act. The action, though, was to complete previous decisions, so not necessarily action to come up with new approaches. In the radiation project, the group in charge, called the SSI, came up with a clear project plan that included tasks. Before they even involved other groups, they had an idea of what needed to get done.

Participation - As mentioned above, there were a number of organizations that participated in the agricultural project, but some specific ones with agendas that seemed to be too entrenched on politically hot issues in Sweden at the time were excluded. There was a steering group that headed the project with representation from more than one concerned organization involved in the related topics of encouraging increased food production at all levels. In addition, there were synthesis groups used to gather relevant knowledge. No socially focused group was created as the goal was to find equilibrium between food supply and demand. When the first steering group felt as if they could not meet the goals they dissolved. The second group did not change the focus, but sought to complete the original approach. They felt like the most extreme views were getting in the way of the first steering committee and decided to take out group members with those views to allow progress. In the radiation case, all the participants were officials at SSI so they invited some additional actors with a wide range of perspectives to join the conversation. The idea was to create an approach as “a forum for tuning the suggested measures or new or re-formulated objectives” (Vifell & Soneryd, 2013, p. 110).

Knowledge Production - In the agriculture example, content was produced by the six synthesis groups on various topics. The group indicated a need for some statistics to help inform decisions. As it turned out, industry organizations were skeptical the data could be produced. The second steering committee took the synthesis group reports, tacked them onto the end of the steering committee plan as appendices, then stuck to their own plan. Knowledge was a highly contested issue in the radiation case. Trust in information from specific organizations was deemed suspect by some committee members. The group organized sub-groups to participate in brainstorming sessions on specific topics, noting problems and potential solutions. Later ideas were distilled to more realistic approaches. Since the goal was to reduce or control radiation, in the end, social issues raised were simply declared as out of scope.
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The paper’s conclusions are helpful if one adopts the specific three sustainability dimensions and the four frames as the authors describe them. It’s one way to try to account for the aimed-for social dimension of the two projects reviewed. It could be more helpful for project teams, such as those involved in the agriculture and radiation projects in Sweden, to include some similar framework in their own up-front project planning. Even if such a project team chooses to ignore social factors on their decisions, at least they would be doing so consciously.

 

Bibliography
Hwang, Bon-Gang, and Wei Jian Ng. 2013. "Project Management Knowledge and Skills for Green Construction: Overcoming Challenges." IEEE Engineering Management Review (IEEE) 41 (2): 87-103.
 
In the world of the project management industry a long-standing question exists. How much knowledge about the technical aspects of the specific project is necessary for the project manager to have? Another way of asking this is, can anyone with project management skills tackle any project in an industry where they have little to no experience? On one hand, project team members are the subject-matter experts (SMEs) and so the project manager should be able to rely on their perspectives. At the same time, perhaps team members have incentives to be less than forthcoming in areas of a project where they hold some responsibility for outcomes. In that case one could argue that a Project Manager (PM) might act as their own SME instead of blindly trusting team input. The compromise scenario is in between where shared expertise can lead to better decision making, as in two heads are better than one. In the reviewed article the authors attempt to help answer this expertise tension by examining a specific kind of project that requires a great deal of specific technical knowledge, that of green construction.

Construction in general is a technical endeavor, but green projects add a layer of technical requirements that inevitably add complexity and cost. Not all construction companies have the knowhow to fulfill these additional requirements such as building designs that include Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) standards.

In examining PM roles in green construction projects, the authors considered ways to score individual PM performance in terms of “social skills, decision-making skills, problem-handling skills, ability to recognize opportunities, and management of changes as key personal attributes affecting project success” (Hwang and Ng 2013, 87). They compared scores in these and other areas with experience in the specific project industry wondering if these PM competency scores might correlate in some way.
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Among other results, the authors note relative importance among PM skills and techniques. As one might guess, their findings were mixed. They looked at 39 knowledge and skill areas in a pre-survey questionnaire. The result was ranking then selecting the top 20 “for the main survey” (Hwang and Ng 2013, 93). They then invited construction companies in Singapore to evaluate various PM performance experiences. “Ultimately, a total of 52 completed survey questionnaires were received, tabulated and analyzed” (Ibid.). Beyond the surveys, their industry literature review “revealed that the project managers may face challenges such as higher costs on green construction projects and that there are elevated risks due to different forms of project delivery and lengthy planning and approval process for new green technologies and materials” (Hwang and Ng 2013, 99). Their primary conclusion of the survey analysis was “that there are specific knowledge areas that should be strengthened in order to effectively manage green construction projects” (Hwang and Ng 2013, 100). The data showed that increased knowledge of the PM did not replace the need for SMEs, but performance increased when a given PM was not completely reliant on team SME perspectives. There is project outcomes benefit to industry specialization in project management.