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128 • Green Project Management

is assessing. As the milestone approaches, the project manager can use a
metric of completion to give an indication of project progress. And if it
gets to the point where the milestone is not met, it gives the project team
a chance to look at all of the constraints and consider replanning. In our
example, the team may want to revisit the cost and quality of the packag-
ing at that point in time. The more critical the task, the more frequent and
well-publicized the milestones should be. This is particularly true with
the green aspects of the project. Because they are relatively new tasks to
the project, they should be monitored more closely. Any trade-offs of the
green aspect of the packaging to gain time or reduce costs should be vetted
against the environmental management plan. Here’s where the vigilance
piece comes in for greenality—it’s the difference between monitor and
control versus monitor and sigh. Another observation tool is the Earned
Environmental Management System, a system outlined in the following
paragraphs that can help to determine if there are any variances in par-
ticular aspects of the project’s greenality. The observation of the health of
the project’s green aspects, as well as the health of other project aspects, is
critical to the success of the project. The aim of conscientious observation
is to catch issues that arise while there is still time to do something about
them, even if it means terminating the project. Those familiar with large
government projects are probably aware of the macabre statistics that
indicate that even with only 20% of the project complete, if you are behind
schedule or above budget, those aspects will likely never recover.
The process of greenality data analysis involves collecting relevant data
about the project’s greenality efforts and then analyzing it, seeking some
reference point as to how effective the efforts have been, if they are being
maintained, and deciding whether or not any “course corrections” need
to be completed. The data supplied in the process can come from a vari-
ety of qualitative and quantitative techniques. Some of the data inputs are
relatively accessible. The project’s planned schedule and budget are used in
the variance analysis process of earned value management (EVM). EVM
is not intended to provide detail as to what actions should be taken on a
project, but is designed to provide a measurement of whether or not there
are any variances in schedule and costs at any point in project execution.
Remember what we said earlier about advancing data into information,
knowledge, and wisdom? Earned value is a way to do that. See the vignette
“A Case for Earned Value” at the end of this chapter for an example of
why you’d want to use it. In any case, the earned value technique uses as
variables earned value (EV) and actual costs (AC) to determine if there is