Non-Project Curios (Airborne Bunny, Ethical Challenges,
Which Way Up? Unusual Project), Not So Good News
(Stakeholder Engagement, Project Termination),
Other News (Good News, Not So Good,
Water Shortages, New Nuclear),
and Closing Remarks
REPORT
By Dr. Miles Shepherd
Executive Advisor & International Correspondent
Salisbury, England, UK
INTRODUCTION
This is the season of Company results when all the focus is on the Stock Exchange so there is not so much news from the Project World. As we live in “interesting times”, there are a number of disruptions to the smooth running of these august institutions which also distracts from the important aspects of our world, so I am departing from my usual format to bring you news of some of the less usual happenings and a smaller helping of project news.
NON-PROJECT CURIOS
- Airborne Bunny. First up, a curious little snippet reported by one of my extra-vigilant imps in the USA. It seems a rabbit was sucked into one of the engines of a Boeing 737 – 800, one of the more beleaguered models in the world of air transport. Although this accounted for the demise of said rabbit, the aircraft was able to make an emergency landing and terrified passengers all managed to evacuate the stricken aircraft.
Image: ZUCK-ZU viaPlanespotter.net
The report, in a most reputable newspaper, goes on to explain that the crew assessed the damage for an hour before landing. This story of technical excellence and risk minimization raises other issues. First, how did the rabbit gain enough altitude to get into the engine? It must have been at quite a high altitude for the crew to ponder for an hour before landing. Second, if the plane was sufficiently stable for an hour, why was there a need for an emergency landing. And finally, the aircraft took off from Denver, Colorado bound for Edmonton, Canada – should we be drawing any conclusions from that?
- Ethical Challenge – Politeness vs Environmental Concerns. While on the other side of the Pond, my travelling imp overheard a discussion on the ethics of Artificial Intelligence (AI). This centred on whether it is ethical to say “please” and “thank you” when interacting with your favourite chatbot. Sam Altman, Chief Executive of OpenAI, claims it costs the planet tens of millions of dollars. Money well spent according to Altman who was responding to a question on electricity consumption. Apparently, large language models such as ChatGPT consume vast amounts of power during training and a single query to GPT4, the current version of ChatBot consumes between 0.6 and 1.5 watt-hours of electricity. This, according to the European Union’s 1.5o Lifestyles Project, would allow a light bulb to be lit for 4 – 13 minutes. A single simple query consumes about 0.2 watt-hours of juice and 40 – 50 queries needs 2 litres of water. Just how politeness figures in this is a detail best left to the experts such as Altman, but it adds further difficulty for the polite project manager when weighing up prompt engineering.
- Which Way Up? A Great British tradition has been singled
out for major criticism which has shocked the Nation! Apparently, we have been eating our favourite chocolate biscuit improperly for generations. The CEO of one of our major biscuit makers has alerted the discerning consumer that the chocolate digestive biscuit should be eaten chocolate side down. Now most of us have the dark side uppermost and so miss getting the best flavour experience. You may be forgiven for wondering how this connects to the world of Projects but it is a well-known fact that project cannot be managed effectively without copious quantities of tea (some readers may recall our report of the advances in tea technology that reduced brewing time and thus improved the Nation’s productivity) and it is equally well known that nothing improves a tea break better than a digestive biscuit, preferably chocolate variety. SO, to derive best flavour experience, eat your chocolate digestive biscuit chocolate side down and contribute to improved productivity.
More…
To read entire report, click here
How to cite this report: Shepherd, M. (2025). UK Project Management Roundup, report, PM World Journal, Vol. XIV, Issue I, January. Available online at https://pmworldlibrary.net/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/pmwj152-May2025-Shepherd-UK-project-management-update-report.docx
About the Author
Dr. Miles Shepherd
Salisbury, UK
Dr. Miles Shepherd is an executive editorial advisor and international correspondent for PM World Journal in the United Kingdom. He is also managing director for MS Projects Ltd, a consulting company supporting various UK and overseas Government agencies, nuclear industry organisations and other businesses. Miles has over 30 years’ experience on a variety of projects in UK, Eastern Europe and Russia. His PM experience includes defence, major IT projects, decommissioning of nuclear reactors, nuclear security, rail and business projects for the UK Government and EU. His consulting work has taken him to Japan, Taiwan, USA and Russia. Past Chair and Fellow of the Association for Project Management (APM), Miles is also past president and chair and a Fellow of the International Project Management Association (IPMA). He was, for seven years, a Director for PMI’s Global Accreditation Centre and is immediate past Chair of the ISO committee developing new international standards for Project Management and for Program/Portfolio Management. He is currently Chairman of the British Standards Institute project management committee. He was involved in setting up APM’s team developing guidelines for project management oversight and governance. Miles is based in Salisbury, England and can be contacted at miles.shepherd@msp-ltd.co.uk.
To view other works by Miles Shepherd, visit his author showcase in the PM World Library at http://pmworldlibrary.net/authors/miles-shepherd/.
