Andy Jordan is President of Roffensian Consulting S.A., a Roatan, Honduras-based management consulting firm with a comprehensive project management practice. Andy always appreciates feedback and discussion on the issues raised in his articles and can be reached at [email protected]. Andy's new book Risk Management for Project Driven Organizations is now available.
A number of the companies that I work with have started adding a line to the bottom of their e-mail signatures asking recipients to “think green” and avoid printing the e-mail if possible. Clearly it’s a good idea, and it has prompted me to speak to them about whether they had a green policy covering the way they do business.
The response is generally “no”--it’s just something the some staff members started doing, and it caught on with others. The obvious next question: Why they don’t have a specific policy? The response is generally that they don’t see a big enough financial benefit--in this economy, anything that’s not maximizing the contribution on the bottom line has to take a back seat.
I can understand that, but I don’t feel that the two are mutually exclusive, so let’s spend a little bit of time examining what a project manager can do to be environmentally friendly on their projects--regardless of the attitude of the organization they work for. This isn’t going to be a radical insight into the ways of project management, but sometimes it’s good to remind ourselves of how simple it can be to make a difference.
The PM as an example to others
As the PM, you set a number of behaviors about how a project is managed. You don’t need to get all of your stakeholders
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to do so."