Sustainabilty and Time Management

Sustainability and Time Management
Integrating sustainability into the knowledge areas can have a streamlining effect on an organization that wants to reduce waste and improve productivity. With regards to time management, the processes required to manage the timely completion of a project commonly includes the definition of project activities, their sequence, resources estimation, activity duration and development of a control schedule.
From a birds-eye view, trying to apply sustainable project methodologies to the time management group may seem challenging, but it is simpler than one might think.  Within each of these processes there are inputs, each of these have the opportunity to be looked at from a “green perspective”. Take for example the first process, “Define Activities” to break it down further and understand how one would do this.
Inputs for Define Activities:

• Scope Baseline
• Enterprise environmental factors
• Organizational process assets

To develop each of these, there are several tools and methods available where when executed from a green perspective a positive outcome can be produced.
Examples

• Rolling Wave Planning:  This method is used when information is less defined and therefore progressive elaboration is employed.  When doing so, the work packages are sometimes broken down to the milestone level. When you have the flexibility to do so, consider the following:
• Templates:  You can integrate your green initiatives when planning and developing these.  When it is possible to use them, you can share these from one project to another, thus allowing you to measure the outputs and consider changes that can reduce waste and make cost savings from project to project.  This can produce significant hard and soft savings across the organization as well improving the framework delivery process of tried and trusted methods from prior projects, making each one going forward more efficient.  In essence, the use of the green templates and the recording of their findings lead to a database of knowledge management and the consistent capturing of lessons learned.
• Decomposition: As an input technique, breaking down project work into activities, is a common way to create waste. This is why assembling a good project team is vital and have a clear understanding of the requirements of the customer are paramount.  On complex projects, to employ a green strategy by using decomposition is to involve the project team members to improve the accuracy and in so doing reducing the failure rate of quality and the need for rework.
• Expert Judgment: This is one of the most useful methods when employing a green strategy.  Gaining insight from a subject matter expert with specific knowledge on a method, product, service or system can reduce the time spent on developing the scope statements as well as reducing the chances of rework through failure at quality review checkpoints.

Overall, Time Management from a green perspective is to ensure the organization employs the right people and then carries out the right methods to get from point A to point B in the most efficient manner with the most effective impact.
To learn more, register for a GPM course at www.greenprojectmanagement.org