July 7, 2009

More on Green Project Management

Posted by Brad Egeland

I previously wrote about “Going Green with IT Project Management” and was interviewed by Projects@Work for an article entitled “Greening Your Projects.” I realize there are a lot of things we can do as employees, Project Managers, IT leaders, etc. to go green and help decrease ours and our company’s carbon footprint. I touched on three in my article:

Telecommuting
Paperless Projects
Incorporate More Green Solutions

I’d like to discuss this topic a little further and provide an example of one of the greenest projects I’ve worked on as PM/Consultant. It involved a market analysis performed for a government entity – something I covered indirectly in the 5-part article series entitled “Performing a Market Analysis for Your Software Project Solution.”

Completely Green Example

I was on a team of 5 primary members with other revolving SMEs joining when needed. This analysis lasted for 6 months, was very successful, yet we never met face-to-face as a team once during that time and we never met face-to-face with the customer. As for the vendors, every demo performed – even the detailed ones that I recommend in Phase 6 – Final Vendor Demos in “Performing a Market Analysis for Your Software Project Solution – Part 4” – were performed online via webex.

All communications were by phone and email, even NDAs and other agreements and onboarding information at the beginning of the project. Everything electronic, everything remote. No travel, minimal costs, minimal waste, maximum profit. We were successful, the customer was happy, the customer incurred no contractor travel expenses and we finished on time. I can’t think of a more efficient project. The vendors didn’t even have to travel – though they did really want to travel for those final vendor demos. That was a frustration for them – but since this was a government project doing a market analysis for the government, that means there’s still a resulting RFP coming out and the vendors will have plenty of chances to travel to show off their solutions as they put together their proposals and proof of concept demos.

Summary

Not all projects can be run like this…I definitely realize that. I’ve been running projects remotely for most of the past three years or so and this is the first one that has been completely remote. Some have required more travel than others, but they’ve all required at least SOME travel. Usually to kickoff projects, design sessions, for UAT or deployment, but always some travel. So this was definitely not the norm, but an interesting lesson in how a project can be successful with a team that never meets in person and with a customer the team never meets.

I wouldn’t recommend it very often and I personally like very much working with the customer face-to-face when it makes sense and when it’s productive. I don’t believe in going onsite to “make a show” for no real productive reason. It’s costly and can be counterproductive. Plus, if you’re a PM and you’re onsite with a customer just to hold their hand, then it’s likely that you’re having to neglect – at least to some degree – the other 4-5 projects you’re running at the time.

Bottom-line – some or mostly remote is my preference. That, combined with as much elimination of paperwork as possible (which happens by default with remote management) makes for a very green project. But the customer is key and our #1 priority, so I definitely can recognize and understand the need to reach out to the customer to help ensure project success.

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