RED4SUS
Application Manual
- Preparation -
1.
PROJECT SELECTION
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This section presents the practical procedures that can be used in selecting promising projects and building teams. The use of agile project assumptions is also discussed, an approach that, applied together with the Red4Sus proposition, can significantly contribute to its development.
PROJECT SELECTION
Incorporating innovation and sustainability into projects requires efforts and the mobilization of different resources, especially people trained and engaged to do so. At the same time, in the public service, projects are usually huge, the number of projects is large, and resources are limited. As a result, it is important to establish procedures for the selection of the projects that will be the target of efforts to incorporate innovation and sustainability. This section discusses this issue and presents practical procedures that can be employed in selecting promising projects.
The first aspect to be considered is the existing information regarding the projects being considered. Project selection can only be properly carried out if there is sufficient information for project evaluation and decision making. Among the important information that must be available, it is worth mentioning: Project Title, Responsible Department, Source of Funds, Project Description, Justification, Estimated Deadline, Scale, Strategic Alignment, Estimated Investment and Expenses, Estimated Direct or Indirect Revenues, Economic Balance, Environmental impact, Social impact, Complexity, Relationship with other projects, and Risks involved.
Ideally, to facilitate project evaluation and selection, this information should be organized in a Project Proposal Form. Thus, for all potential projects that may be the object of innovation and sustainability efforts, the same nature of information will be available. A model of the Project Proposal Form is presented here, with more information regarding each field. (This form serves as a starting point for companies that do not have a defined standard. It certainly can be adjusted to the specific needs of each organization).
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Once the information about the projects is gathered, the evaluation can be carried out. More specifically, the elements that can be quantified are: Scale, Strategic alignment, Economic balance, Environmental impact, Social impact, Complexity, Relation with other projects, and Risks involved. Estimated Investment and Revenue could also be assessed, but they are integrated into the Economic Balance assessment. The tables here present the acronyms, the elements that can be quantified, and the scale [1 to 9] proposed for quantification. After evaluating the elements of each project, this evaluation can be translated into a priority indicator. This indicator can be used to rank projects and select projects that will be the object of efforts to incorporate innovation and sustainability. The following equation is recommended for calculating the priority indicator:
Priority = (SCxSA) x (EB+EI+SI) x (CX+RO+RI)
The proposed formula is composed of three parts indicated in parentheses. The first parenthesis assesses the Need and uses a multiplicative logic, indicating that projects that simultaneously meet Scale and Strategic Alignment requirements will be prioritized. Thus, high coverage projects presenting low strategic alignment or vice-versa will not be prioritized. The second parenthesis evaluates the Impact and applying an additive logic, which adds economic, environmental and social impacts. In this case, the logic is additive, as a smaller impact on one of these three dimensions can be compensated by a larger impact on the other dimensions. It is important to mention that the economic, environmental and social impacts can be positive or negative, and projects with a high impact are prioritized, regardless of the signal. This is because innovation and sustainability efforts can help mitigate negative impacts or leverage positive effects. The third parenthesis measures the Difficulty to implement the project, translated as the simple sum of Complexity, Relation with other projects, and Risks involved. Projects of greater complexity, which are more dependent on other projects or where the risks involved are greater, are prioritized. Innovation and sustainability efforts are especially welcome in these more difficult cases.
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Finally, the general logic of prioritization, as presented in the equation, is multiplicative. Thus, projects that combine higher Need, Impact and Difficulty are prioritized. Once the ranking has been made, using the priority indicator, the selection of projects that will be the object of innovation and sustainability still needs to consider eventual restrictions in the capacity to carry out the projects. These restrictions may involve financial issues, technical issues, infrastructure, or size of available staff. So, for example, 20 projects can be ranked, while the evaluation of the hours of involvement mobilized by each project can define that staff available is capable of carrying out only the first 12 projects on this list. These restrictions are specific to each organization and define the number of projects that can be included in the innovation and sustainability program.
TEAM BUILDING
The composition of teams in the public sphere is, in itself, diverse. This happens both due to the origin of the professionals and the different forms of selection, as well as due to the functions performed in public positions, which can be of direct or indirect administration (such as civil servants and career civil servants), services from outsourced companies, elective positions and/or commissioned. The vision of the complementarity of these different profiles can awaken team spirit, leadership and the development of entrepreneurial skills. Entrepreneurial behaviour can be understood as knowledge, skills and attitudes that mobilize the process of creation and consequently of innovation within organizations, not necessarily requiring that this entrepreneurial profile coincide with that of an active entrepreneur in the private sector.
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The creative process and the culture of entrepreneurship and innovation in the public sector can serve to make decision-making based on complementary knowledge, supported by different views of the world and the reality in which they are inserted. Thus, understanding aspects related to the development of creativity requires teams with a higher profile of knowledge, skills and attitudes whose multidisciplinarity, diversity and inclusion are prioritized. The organization of teams, multidisciplinary teams serves so that the look at the selection of different profiles is also considered beyond managers and leaders, that is, the focus of creating ideas and managing innovation processes need to visualize the requirements based on the consumer (citizen) and in society. In general, “the entrepreneur is that subject in the public sector who, individually or collectively, idealizes, promotes, produces, executes or coordinates innovation” (Emmendoerfer, 2019, p.24).
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For this, the development and training of technicians who work in the public sector need to involve aspects related to soft skills, stimulating the generation of ideas and innovations, creativity, initiative, leadership and commitment. Furthermore, it is necessary to enable people to take decisions with calculated risks, to be more persuasive, to expand their network of contacts and the combination of these different knowledges. These skills and attitudes create an atmosphere conducive to entrepreneurship and innovative processes. These conditions are inherent to the nature of people, but to put them into practice and generate creative and innovative potential, a receptive environment is needed for this.
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Teams that combine “soft and hard skills” tend to be more constructive and engaged. This is because technical skills are the main ones listed in the selection and recruitment processes, especially when the profiles of positions invested in the public sector are analysed. Thus, it is essential that there is a look and also the improvement of social skills, relationships, since these characteristics tend to compose a more fruitful and assertive environment and relationships. As examples, we can mention that the constant search for opportunities and initiatives, persistence, empathy, trust, resilience and collaborative action, among others, contribute to the greater dedication and commitment of the project teams. Thus, interdisciplinarity, the diversity of profiles, including gender, race, creeds, brings different views of the world, which better represent the broad spectrum of society. This diversity favours the creative process, allows for a deeper understanding of citizens' problems and needs. Thus, the solutions built, in the form of products, processes or services, are better aligned with the needs of the community involved, qualifying the innovations and benefits generated.
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Therefore, the constitution of teams that combine technical (hard skills) and personal (soft skills), based on diversity, tends to expand the capacity for creating and generating innovations. Naturally, it is known that technical knowledge and soft skills can and should be the object of personal and collective improvement. Thus, organizations, which are made up of skills, learning and collective development trajectories, can plan their actions aiming at the formation of teams prepared to lead the innovation process.
AGILE PROJECTS
The Agile approach has been explored and applied, initially to software development, for more than two decades. Since its inception, made official with the Manifesto for Agile Software Development, it has followed, however, basic fundamentals that can be applied to any development, not just software, such as: (i) INDIVIDUALS AND INTERACTIONS, more than processes and tools; (ii) PRODUCT WORKING, more than comprehensive documentation; (iii) COLLABORATION WITH THE CUSTOMER, more than contract negotiation; (iv) RESPONDING TO CHANGES rather than following a plan. As a cornerstone of these foundations, there is also the premise of Systemic Thinking as a way of perceiving not only the problem, but also its surroundings, in terms of individuals and areas involved.
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However, there are still many misunderstandings about the Agile approach, starting with the assumption that the items to the right of its foundational statements have no value, when in reality it is only about objectivity and prioritization. Likewise, the misinterpretation of some of its 12 principles also promotes confusion, such as believing, for example, that the Agile approach is against documentation (when, in fact, it prioritizes face-to-face interaction); that the Agile approach is applied without planning (when, in fact, the planning is iterative, daily, being timely adjusted); that there is no work discipline (when, in fact, it requires necessarily self-disciplined teams to carry out the work collaboratively and meet the quality and deadline demands of each project deliverable); that it is not scalable (when, in fact, there are frameworks, such as SAFe® and Scrum@Scale, showing that effective methods for scalability are being applied by organizations).
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Other misconceptions concern the belief that it is a methodology with certain steps to be followed, when it comes to a work mindset. For this reason, it is often understood as synonymous with Scrum, which is a framework, a methodology, which follows the fundamentals and principles of the Agile approach. Therefore, to understand the Agile scenario it is important not to confuse the work approach, the work style, with its tools.
But how to lead Agile projects in non-native environments to this approach? First, although there are numerous tools available associated with Agile methodologies, such as Kanban, Scrum and Lean, the practice of a new work model requires planning and training, as it needs to fit into the organization, be comprehensive and cross-sectoral, so that the responses to the demands of the projects are quick but effective. What does this mean? That the organization, as a whole, needs to agree, accept and collaborate with this new project development model, realizing its benefits in terms of value creation. If this does not happen, the chances of success diminish, no matter how good the project planning is. Second, it means a new reality for development professionals used to interacting practically within their departments, sectors or areas, with little or eventual interaction with project users and other interested parties. The Agile approach requires this routine contact between the development teams and the project stakeholders so that the expectations of these stakeholders can be contemplated in each sprint of the solutions under development. Thirdly, the Agile approach proposes a new way of internal work, in which activities and responsibilities are self-managed by the teams, and no longer by the figure of a traditional project manager, who monitors and controls activities, deadlines, scope, etc. In this model, the manager is responsible for the project's macro-management, the strategic aspects of its development for the organization, and not micro-management. This is a key point of difference, yet underestimated by organizations that have tried but failed to adopt the agile project model. Finally, for the adoption of the Agile approach to be effective and offer positive results for the project and organization, its application must be systemic, that is, from planning to project implementation, and not just at certain stages of its development. Combining different ways and approaches to work for the same project will only confuse teams and managers, make it difficult to carry out and monitor the work, and may generate unpredictable or unwanted results.
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These issues are fundamental in the transition to the Agile approach and, if not addressed, can generate resistance to change, either on the part of the organization, teams or project managers. In this case, it is necessary to identify the causes of this resistance (for example, insecurity of professionals regarding their training, incomprehension of the approach, ignorance of its benefits, maintenance of the power status quo, etc) and analyse them in depth to define a mitigation strategy. This is because resistance to change has been identified as an important cause of failure even in carefully planned projects. It can be perceived by typical behaviours of individuals such as: endless arguments on any subject, constant criticism, sarcastic comments, absence from meetings, unfulfilled commitments, useless discussions, and even sabotage in some cases. Fisher (2012) graphically describes the stages of a transition process, presenting the negative and positive feelings with which individuals face this curve of change. Therefore, the empowerment and engagement of the organization and individuals to this new work philosophy is fundamental for the successful application of the Agile approach.
Unfortunately, many organizations fail to adopt the Agile model due to the organizational culture not supporting it, or even due to a lack of knowledge, leadership and expertise on how to implement it. Therefore, it is necessary to select professionals with an adequate profile, both for development and for management, align the team, train the personnel involved in the projects, because, as we saw earlier, there are many misconceptions and myths attributed to this approach. Finally, it is necessary to establish an agile project management system based on efficient metrics that enable the measurement of project development results. The identification of successes achieved and the mapping of points of improvement will establish not only a basis of lessons learned, but will also guide the development of future projects.