Humble Heroes

Right after I saw the movie Witness, I've always wanted to assist the Amish in a barn-raising.

Seeing a worthy project like this from groundbreaking to completion in one day, watching the whole community pitching in to help a young couple, it all brought tears to my eyes. I've been fascinated with the Anabaptists since, visiting Lancaster county multiple times and reading about them whenever possible.
I watched a documentary recently and saw how, after some maniac shot a bunch of Amish children, they had pity for the shooter's widow and attended his funeral.

In yesterday's Times, I read an article detailing how, ever since Hurricane Sandy, 1,300 Mennonites have been volunteering in Far Rockaway and Staten Island, rebuilding destroyed homes. Some are even commuting from their Lancaster County farms after putting in a full day's farm work, then volunteering for another day and commuting back the three hours. Others are coming in from Ohio, staying in temporary housing built by Amish carpenters and trucked to the sites.

abin Botsford/The New York TimesMennonite volunteers are living in Far Rockaway in trailers built by Amish carpenters.

They assist the neediest cases: cancer victims, wheelchair-bound, handicapped. They plan on helping out for two to five years. And there is no proselytizing. They are here only to rebuild other's homes. Humble heroes indeed.

Inventions from the hurricane

Every disaster spawns inventions and this latest Hurricane was no exception. Those I feature here were in process already, spawned by previous disasters but they will ring true to anyone in New York who recently had to deal with flooding and disrupted subway service.

How about a balloon that opens within a subway tunnel to block the water flow enough to allow any leakage to be pumped out?

 An  inflatable device that could save tunnels from flooding. By HENRY FOUNTAIN 

As shown in this article, this project has been around for a few years with successes and failures but it recently got new life after many of NYC subways were inundated and millions of commuters were shuttled onto ferries and buses.

A bigger potential problem deals with rising sea levels and the fact that Manhattan is barely above current sea levels. How do you protect a whole metropolis?

The Netherlands has been struggling with this problem for its entire existence. Here are the flood gates that close periodically to protect Rotterdam from the ravages of the North Sea:

Tineke Dijkstra/Hollandse Hoogte

London has gates to protect from surges up the Thames:

A flood barrier on the Thames by MICHAEL KIMMELMAN

Read more in this recent Times article.

Hurricane Photos

Between Google's satellite photos and NOAA's aerial photos and some clever matching, we now have the ability to scroll over before and after pictures of this recent hurricane damage in New York, New Jersey. I show some stills below but encourage you to use this link to get to the photos that you can scroll between. Sobering indeed. 

Mantaloking beach where Mother Nature made it's own changes to this barrier island.



Breezy-Point section of Rockaway beach, where 111 homes burned as firefighters were kept away by floodwaters



Dignity for the dead

Hiroko Masuike/The New York Times

Atsushi Chiba used Buddhist rituals in caring for nearly 1,000 bodies in Kamaishi. “It's a way to comfort the living,” he said.

Here's another example of the quiet leadership that took place during and after the Japanese tsunami.
One undertaker, Atsushi Chiba cared for almost 1,000 bodies in Kamaishi. Mr. Chiba, in his early 70s, raced to the temporary morgue on the day after the tsunami to look for friends and family, but was struck by the state of the mounting number of bodies there. Most were still clad in muddy clothes and wrapped in plastic, their rigid limbs jutting out and faces bruised by debris and contorted in agony.

“I thought that if the bodies were left this way, the families who came to claim them wouldn’t be able to bear it,” Mr. Chiba said Thursday in an interview. “Yes, they are dead. But in Japan, we treat the dead with respect, as if they are still alive. It’s a way to comfort the living.”

Mr. Chiba set to work. He became a fixture at the morgue, speaking to the bodies as he prepared them for viewing and then cremation. “You must be so cold and lonely, but your family is going to come for you soon so you’d better think of what you’re going to say to them when they arrive,” he recalled saying.

He also taught city workers at the morgue how to soothe limbs tense with rigor mortis, getting down on his knees and gently massaging them so the bodies looked less contorted. When the relatives of a middle-aged victim sobbed that her corpse looked gaunt, Mr. Chiba asked for some makeup and applied rouge and blush.

Mr. Chiba’s attempts to honor the dead quickly caught on. City workers put together old school desks to make a Buddhist altar. They lay the bodies of couples and of family members together. Each time a body was carried out, workers lined up with heads bowed to pay their last respects.

And at Mr. Chiba’s urging, Kamaishi became one of the only hard-hit communities to cremate all of its dead as called for by Japanese custom, enlisting the help of crematoriums as far as Akita, over 100 miles away.

In all, 888 of Kamaishi’s approximately 40,000 residents are known to have died; 158 more are listed as missing and presumed dead.

The priest, Enou Shibasaki, from the Senjuin Temple in the hills overlooking Kamaishi, remembers the change that came over the makeshift morgue as Mr. Chiba and other city workers tended to the bodies.

“Whether you are religious or not, mourning for the dead is a fundamental need,” Mr. Shibasaki said. “Mourning starts by taking care of the body. It’s the last you see of your loved one, and you want to remember them as beautiful as they were in life.”

Read the details of this story in a recent NY Times article

Here's a great slideshow with the faces of the tsunami:

If you were impressed with the graphics put together showing the before and after photos of the destruction caused by the tsunami,

this next graphic shows the progress that has been made repairing the damage. Click on this link to see. 

Plowing Snow by hand

I've often had to shovel snow off my driveway and tried to do it the way snowplows work but with no success. The snow falls off the back or piles up on the sides and generally I revert to bending, scooping and throwing the snow until I hurt my back. Then I send my sons out to do it.

This man has invented a way to do it properly. Check out the Shove it shovel.

With two hands you get the ability to push and angle the snow away from you, just the way a snow-plow would do it.

Here's the man's website.

He invented it while watching his son move big piles of snow using a conventional snowplow blade on the front of a truck. Meanwhile, Burke was clearing a walkway with the classic, straight-edge snow shovel — scooping, lifting, turning and throwing.

"Just looking at that snowplow, I thought, 'Why not make one of these that looks like a snowplow?' " Burke recalled. "Just to avoid coming home crooked at night from all the twisting."

So he began tinkering.
What he came up with puts the shovel blade on a pivot and gives the user two handles — one to push, one to steer. With one of the handles and the pivot, the user can turn the blade to the side at any angle desired, just like a snowplow, then use the other handle to push snow down the walk and to the side, keeping the blade on the ground.
Check out the video:

"I was actually kind of surprised that no one had come up with it before," Burke said.

The second part of this story is the struggle he went through to get a patent on his idea. Read an excerpt from the Denver Post article describing his travails:

Burke figured he ought to at least seek prot

Disasters spawn inventions

The Japanese Tsunami resulted in thousands of deaths, focusing some inventive minds on the question, "How could I survive a seventy foot high wave bearing down on my town when I have only a few minutes to react?

Shoji Tanaka standing in front of Noah, his invention to survive tsunamis

Shoji Tanaka invented a pod that could withstand the forces of a tsunami and provide enough air, food and drink for a person to survive for three days. Other inventions, like robot armor to clean up nuclear disasters and 3D mid-air messages for informing the public of disaster, were unveiled and were reported on in a recent NY Times article.

Some of these ideas seem crazy but, if history repeats, one or two will become reality. Let's see what happened to disaster inventions from ten years ago.

Soon after watching people jump from the stricken twin towers, inventors came up with seemingly outlandish ways of saving them. Here's an article from December 2002, discussing the various parachutes and rappeling devices being envisioned at the time.

One of these inventions bore fruit. Dr. Kevin Stone invested a million dollars to create a product that would allow people to rappel from burning skyscrapers. He showed off his invention by March 2011 and it is available for purchase now, ten years after the event at http://www.rescuereel.com/

Here's his TED video showing his inspiration and the invention in action:

So which of the tsunami inventions is the most likely to be a product in ten years?

Ernest Shackleton's Polar Expedition

Endurance, cutting through the ice on sail and steam engine

A lot has been said about Ernest Shackleton's polar expedition, especially within Project Management circles. Most of the dialogue centers around his decision to change the goal from crossing Antarctica to saving the lives of his entire crew. Since he's back in the news again as his 100 year anniversary nears, I thought I'd add my take on the story.

For those who don't know the story, back in 1914, there were still some difficult places to reach on earth and explorers willing to expend large amounts of money, time and lives on being the first person to reach these places. Ernest Shackleton was part of Scott's 1901, failed expedition to the south pole, not the 1911 one that cost Scott his life and the life of his crew.

Ice mountains formed by moving pack ice

After Amundson reached the pole, Shackleton decided to explore Antarctica by crossing the continent on dog-sleds from one side to another. (Was this the inspiration for 'Ripping Yarns' Crossing the Andes on frog?)

He gathered a crew and set off, leaving civilization, as it were, on South Georgia island where the locals warned him that ice pack made his expedition impossible. They warned him to wait until the pack melted in a few months. He ignored the local knowledge and pushed on, his ship becoming trapped in the ice one day from his destination.

Realizing he was not going to achieve his initial goal of crossing Antarctica on dog-sled, he changed the project's goal to ensuring that every member of his expedition survived the ordeal. (A pretty lofty goal in those days when losing half your expedition crew was commonplace. This is still true on many Everest expeditions)

He proved himself an excellent leader for this second goal. He worked on his men's warmth, shelter, comfort and mental health. He organized a sail on lifeboats to the nearest land mass, Elephant Island, before the ice all melted. He organized a rescue mission, sailing over open Antarctic water to South Georgia island, (a ship voyage considered by many to be the most impressive in the entire history of sailing).

He climbed for 36 hours across to the inhabited side of this island, then sent a vessel to rescue his remaining crew on Elephant island. All but the animals survived.

Read the details here:

But let's look at the entire project from a good project management perspective:
Idea Phase: Good job, getting backing and getting people excited to join. He even acquired a stowaway with his enthusiasm. Grade A
Planning Phase: Filled the ship with valuable supplies that ended up saving their lives. Probably missed some key information that could have been supplied by Norwegian whalers. Things like: When does the pack-ice form? How thick is it? How much pressure does it exert? Grade D
Early Execution Phase: Completely ignored valuable information from people with knowledge who warned him not to attempt what he was doing at the time. Didn't keep pressing forward with his steam engine and allowed the ship to become completely trapped. Grade F
Rethinking Phase: Changed the Project Objective on his own. Normally a huge no-no but given that he had no way of communicating with the stakeholders who have this authority, he took it on himself to change the objective to what he thought was right at the time. (It's what the team thought was right as well and he was vindicated on return for making the right decision) Grade A
Replanning Phase: Knew that the ice would destroy his ship so he set up camp on the ice in such a way to survive the winter. Grade A
Early Execution Phase: Ensured that morale stayed high by giving the best supplies to the lowest ranked members of the expedition. Encouraged work, hunting parties, diversions to make it through the three months of darkness. Got the men safely to dry land before the ice melted. Grade A
Middle Execution Phase: Organized the rescue mission. Put the best sailors on the rescue ship and led it himself. Placed a competent leader in charge of those left behind. Endured personal hardship in the hike across South Georgia Island. Grade A
Late Execution Phase: Focused on the goal of rescuing the remainder of his expedition until it succeeded. Grade A
Closing Phase: Gave out rewards to some of his men but not to others, sometimes for minor infractions during the almost two-year ordeal. Grade C
Overall Grade B
Better planning would have brought him up to an A and remember, 90% of Project Management is communication and most of that is listening.

Beach Animals

This is just a cool project. A crazy Dutchman who makes wind-powered PVC pipe 'animals' that he lets loose on the dunes.

If you want to hear more about them, check out his website:

Strandbeest.com

We liked these so much we bought a small version of his beasts from his website. Jack, Liam and I built it last night and got it working. It is so cool! Not having any wind here in our little valley, we had to improvise but we'll bring it to the beach with us this summer to see how it reacts to its natural habitat.



Excellent project management cools nuclear power plants

I received a very interesting e-mail from a Cadence Project Management colleague in Japan tonight. He told a story about the heroic efforts of Tokyo firefighters cooling down the stricken nuclear reactors. He showed how they used good project management techniques to accomplish their goal. He mapped the project to the Cadence project life cycle.

March 12, Think phase:

On the day of the earthquake, they put out 52 fires in Tokyo. On the following day, without being asked, they started to prepare their contribution to the cooling of the reactors. They took the lead on this based on the established fact that they are the top firefighters in Japan.

March 13, Study phase:

They identified several alternatives on how to send a lot of water flowing into the plant.
Their concerns were the following;

• How do they make a lot of water flow into a building taller than 20 meters?
• How do they get a continuous flow of one thousand tons of sea water to fire engines?
• How do they make the fire engines continue to work for long time while unmanned?
• How do they keep the firefighters safe from radioactivity on site?

March 16, Research phase:

They evaluated alternatives. They performed simulations of three alternatives on river in Tokyo.
They chose two alternatives: One using a fire engine with a 22m long folded pipe. The other using a fire engine with a 40m long extension ladder. They established a way to extend a 350m long hose by a machine without hands. This reduced radioactive exposure to the firefighters.They established a way to work fire engines without firefighters except for breaks to supply fuel.
They confirmed their criteria of radioactivity and way to measure and control exposure to it.

• Preferred level: 10 units/person per mission.
• Maximum level: 30 units/person per mission.
• Maximum level: 100 units/person total.
• They established roles to measure radioactivity and to alarm of over-exposure.

March 17, Plan phase:

They received an offer to go to the plant. They had to change and refine alternatives on site because the wind was too strong for the extension ladder and there was too much debris and rubble to use the machine to extend the 350m long hose.
They chose the fire engine with the 22m long folded pipe They developed a procedure to extend the 350m long hose by hand and executed it while measuring radioactivity next to the plant. They all confirmed that the plan would succeed.

March 19, Execute phase:

They successfully executed the plan. bThe result follows:

• More than one thousand tonnes of sea water flowed into the reactor.
• They achieved a rate of three tonnes of sea water per minute for 13 hours.
• Radioactivity started decreasing immediately after water starting flowing.
• Maximum of radioactivity of fire fighters was 27 units and almost of them are less than 10.



　March 20, Close phase:

After their mission, Three commanders were interviewed on TV. They explained the above-mentioned mission.

My colleague was impressed in the answers to reporter's questions after their explanation.

It took three times as long as usual for fire fighters to don their protective clothing since they really understood the danger of radioactivity.

The commander was concerned for the families of the firefighters although the firefighters had high motivation.
The commander apologized to and appreciated his firefighters' families.

One commander said to his wife "I will go to the plant and I shall return," and his wife replied:

"I believe you. Be a savior of Japan."

My colleague and I were both reminded of the movie "Armageddon".

He is proud of them as Japanese.

Below is a link to a newspaper article explaining more about this story:

Japanese newspaper article

Impressive Graphics of Tsunami Damage

This post doesn't speak much about Project Management but I wanted to share with you the very impressive graphics that the NY Times has put out showing damage by the recent tsunami. Click on the link below, then grab the scroll bar in the middle of the screen and move it left and right to see how each area was affected.

satellite-photos-japan-before-and-after-tsunami.html