No one can argue against the fact that one of the key interests in business everywhere is how to ‘go green.’ Businesses across the country and around the world are looking for ways to go paperless, decrease their carbon footprint, incorporate energy-saving processes into their own business practices and allow for more telecommuting to cut down on needless travel and use of valuable and costly energy resources.
I’ve been managing projects remotely for the past three years so going mostly green on my projects has happened out of necessity and convenience. Let’s look, in general, at how organizations can be more environmentally friendly in the approach to managing projects.
Telecommuting
As I said, I’ve been telecommuting and managing projects remotely for the past three years. The company that I’ve performed most of my PM work for allows all of their PMs to function remotely. Thus, they’ve eliminated several costs in the way of floor space, desks/furniture, and additional travel expenses.
I’ve also found personally that working remotely means I’m more productive, I often work longer hours when necessary and take less vacation and sick days. Since I don’t have to drive to the office and lose 1-2 hours per day performing that function, I have more time to work and I’m willing to do work at 11pm from home when it’s necessary rather than having the attitude that I’ve ‘put in my 8 hours!
Paperless Projects
Going paperless, to me, is one of the most obvious changes we can make. I used to work on a large government contract where I led a formal project review on a quarterly basis with the costumer – alternating between Iowa and Washington DC. Not only did 10-20 people have to travel each way for the meetings, but my staff and I also put together a 100-120-page status book with charts and graphs for every meeting and published 30-40 copies. That’s a lot of paper. One time we even had to purchase an extra plane ticket just to ship the large box of status books to the meeting!
For the past three years, I’ve been almost exclusively paperless in my project management methods. All status reports, project plan updates, status meeting notes, issues/risks lists, etc. are all created and delivered electronically. The only paper that has been created has been occasional hardcopy output of the Project Kickoff materials for the meetings at the beginning of each project. That’s fairly acceptable since it’s the first time that you’re actually in front of the customer face-to-face on each project. After that, it’s all paperless.
Incorporate More Green Solutions
Look to your project staff and executive management to incorporate greener solutions into the company offerings. Paperless reports, depending on the industry – solutions that incorporate energy usage monitoring and carbon footprint calculations (for asset management-type solutions), and allowing project managers to incorporate PM methodologies and processes that minimize travel while still maximizing customer interaction and communication.
Not only will these provide environmentally friendly options for your customers, they will also increase revenue as add-on work on the projects you are managing. Everyone is looking for ways to ‘go green.
Summary
It’s important to cut costs and unnecessary waste, but don’t let that mean in turn that you drop the ball on the customer. If the customer doesn’t feel like they are getting enough time and attention, they will not be a happy customer overall.
These are just a few of the ways that companies can push a greener agenda. There are only so many ways you can help that out with your project management processes. I personally feel that remote PM – maybe not entirely, but to a great degree – and going paperless are the two biggest ways that an organization can go green with their PM processes.