For organizations who are responsible for delivering capital projects, particularly in the public sector, delivering sustainable projects is becoming a must requirement. Sustainable projects are projects that are not only delivering the project scope with the desired quality, within budget, and on the needed delivery date but will also help in achieving the United Nations 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to end poverty, protect the planet, and ensure prosperity by the year 2030. Those projects need to contribute to the country’s economy, society, and environmental development objectives.
The Project Management Information System (PMIS) will be used to audit each project’s compliance with those three sustainability development objectives. Using PMWeb as the PMIS solution, the customs form builder will be used to create and capture the Economy, Society, and Environment scores set for the project. For each, sustainability development aspect, there will be a list of measures for which they will be scored on a scale from 1 to 5 at the end of each month or quarter depending on the organization’s sustainability policy. A score of 1 would mean no compliance while a score of 5 will be full compliance. Weights will be set for each score to be able to have a total weighted score value for each aspect. Similar to all PMWeb modules, documents can be uploaded and attached to the Sustainability Audit Report as well as relevant PMWeb records can be linked. In addition, a workflow will be assigned to formalize the steps for submitting, reviewing, and approving the Sustainability Audit Report.
The data captured in those Sustainability Audit Reports will become the basis for monitoring, evaluating, and reporting the sustainability development compliance for a project or a portfolio of projects. The report will show the compliance trend for each measure of the three sustainability aspects society, economy, and environment. The report could include filters to select the project or the project portfolio that the organization is interested to report on.
A PMIS solution like PMWeb will address and fulfill the requirements of sustainable development management for any capital project. This will include the periodical Sustainability Audit Reports for the three sustainability aspects of society, economy, and environment. The sustainability development management information captured in the PMIS will provide the organization with real-time content to monitor, evaluate and report the performance of project sustainable development compliance.
About the Author
Bassam Samman, PMP, PSP, EVP, GPM is a Senior Project Management Consultant with more than 35-year service record providing project management and control services to over 100 projects with a total value of over the US $5 Billion. Those projects included Commercial, Residential, Education and Healthcare Buildings and Infrastructure, Entertainment and Shopping Malls, Oil and Gas Plants and Refineries, and Telecommunication and Information Technology projects. He is thoroughly experienced in complete project management including project management control systems, computerized project control software, claims analysis/prevention, risk analysis/management (contingency planning), design, supervision, training, and business development.
Bassam is a frequent speaker on topics relating to Project Management, Strategic Project Management, and Project Management Personal Skills. Over the past 35 years, he has lectured at more than 350 events and courses at different locations in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and South America. He has written more than 250 articles on project management and project management information systems that were featured in international and regional magazines and newspapers. He is a co-founder of the Project Management Institute- Arabian Gulf Chapter (PMI-AGC) and has served on its board of directors for more than 6 years. He is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) from the Project Management Institute (PMI), a certified Planning and Scheduling Professional (PSP), and Earned Value Professional (EVP) from the American Association of Cost Engineers (AACE) and Green Project Management (GPM).
Bassam holds a Masters in Engineering Administration (Construction Management) with Faculty Commendation, George Washington University, Washington, D.C., USA, Bachelor in Civil Engineering – Kuwait University, Kuwait and has attended many executive management programs at Harvard Business School, Boston, USA and London Business School, London, UK.