PMI Global Congress - EMEA [email protected]Dublin, May 10, 2011 Nicos Kourounakis, MASc, MBA, PMP, IPMA-D, PRINCE2, OPM3 Project & Strategy Consultant, OPM-CG Adjunct Professor, Hellenic American University [email protected]Lean & Green Philosophies Influences on Modern Project Management May 10 th , 2011 Dublin
In the past decades, lean production philosophy has influenced deeply the way many manufacturing business work today. However, lean philosophy can also be adapted and applied to project work, and influence project management approaches with the ultimate goal of reducing/eliminating waste of all forms.
Examples of reducing waste in projects are reducing material waste, process waste, minimizing work in process, eliminating idle workforce, minimizing unused workforce skills, minimizing rework due to poor quality or spec changes). The lean approach is applied both to projects’ processes but also to the whole project value chain.
Adopting a Lean approach aims to reduce project costs while maximizing value for clients or users. However, it usually achieves this within the defined project boundaries, that is, the defined value chain of the project (i.e. suppliers, project team, customer or users).
Borrowing, however, the basic principles of green management and applying them to project management, one would tend to consider more the interrelation & interdependence between the systems of projects, the environment, economy and society, and therefore influence the project scope, deliverables, and project management approach to become “friendlier” to the surrounding systems/environments. Such systems (or sub-systems) are other projects, programs, corporate portfolios, the organization at large, society, and the natural environment.
This presentation offers an overview of the current developments in lean and green approaches as applied to project management, and proposes the consideration of the broader social and natural environments in the definition of projects. Green project management should include green objectives in the definition of the project scope, and apply a greener approach in managing project work. The purpose is to minimize any negative impact to project environments (negative by-products) while maximizing positive impact (positive by-products) by applying a less fragmented and longer-term holistic thinking, thus moving towards a more sustainable project management model.
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Greenwashing: the deceptive use of green PR or green marketing in order to promote a misleading perception that a company's practices, policies or products are environmentally friendly.
Source: wikipedia
Source: http://www.sinsofgreenwashing.org
• Sin of no proof • Sin of the hidden trade off • Sin of vagueness • Sin of irrelevance • Sin of less of two evils
Nicos is a Project Management Consultant with expertise in Project Management Methodologies, Portfolio Management and Organizational Project Management Maturity.
Nicos has been involved in many international projects in Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Belgium, Austria and Greece, working both with large organizations and with smaller ventures and start-ups. As a Product Manager he also managed the successful development and launch of an innovative Enterprise Project Management software application, which is currently used by several EU Agencies.
Mr. Kourounakis has also several years of experience in training and public speaking. As an Adjunct Professor at the Professional MBA program of the Hellenic American University in Athens, Greece, he has taught courses and delivered seminars in Project Management, Portfolio Management, Operations & Supply Chain Management and Management of Information Systems. He has also been involved with PMI both as a speaker at the 2011 PMI Global Project Management Congress in Dublin, at PMI-Istanbul 2012, and PMI BeLux in 2012 (Keynote Speaker), and as an elected Vice President of the Board of Directors of the PMI Chapter in Athens, Greece (2008-2011).
Mr. Kourounakis holds an MBA from McGill University, Montreal, Canada, a MASc in Electrical Engineering from the University of Victoria, Canada, and a BSc in Physics from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, Greece. Nicos is also one of the first 100 professionals to be certified in PMI's Organizational Project Management Maturity (OPM3).