Front-end Sustainability: Initiating the right sustainable projects

Developed by Kristine Fisker

Figure 1: Influence, cost of changes, and information during the innovation process [1]

Projects shape society and our world permanently, by shaping the impact of the products, buildings, infrastructure, policies and systems designed within them. One of the most critical questions for project management going forward will be how to aid in tackling the large, complex, and interlinked sustainability challenges that need to be solved for societies worldwide to be sustained and prosper.

The Front-End of Innovation (sometimes referred to as the Fuzzy Front-End) (when project ideas and concepts are searched for, defined, and a concept is finally selected for further development), is the stage which is most critical in determining the impact of a project, yet the Front-End of Eco-Innovation has received little attention by the field of project management .

This article will provide a high level overview of considerations and frameworks that project, program and portfolio managers can apply to transform front-end processes for increased sustainability impact of their projects, which can increase resilience and opportunity creation for their organizations. As the link between front-end innovation and sustainability is an emerging field of study, this article combines current best practices within front-end management- and sustainability management.

The Front-End: An Overlooked Key to Sustainable Impact

Figure 1: Influence, cost of changes, and information during the innovation process

Companies that develop solutions to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) can discover new growth opportunities and reduce risk to their continued operation. As governments and international organizations keep increasing efforts to deliver on the SDGs, it will strengthen the financial value of corporate sustainability, e.g. as taxes and pricing mechanisms are introduced to internalize externalities . Eco-innovation will thus become an increasing source of competitive advantage, and mastering the front-end of environmental innovation could be crucial for business success and longevity .

The Front-End is the most uncertain, challenging part of projects, while at the same time being the part of the project that has the largest influence on final project impact(see Figure 1). Investing in the front-end project development is generally described as having one of the highest payback of possible investments . To achieve a high level of sustainability rather than a lower level, companies must integrate sustainability considerations into the early stages of the innovation process, as this is the phase where fundamental project requirements are defined, that will often not be possible to be changed later.

Application

Advice and frameworks for managing front-end innovation and sustainability is summarized here in 4 steps of increasing complexity in the following.

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1. Know to challenge initial ideas and manage the search for impactful concepts

Figure 2: Illustration of the exploration and uncertainty of the fuzzy front end. Through searching and selecting project concepts, the fuzzy front end is concerned with effectiveness ('doing the right things'), whereas later project stages are more about efficiency (doing things right).

Realizing the potential and the common pitfalls in front-end innovation management, and allocating resources to manage the front-end, is the very foundation of sustainable project impact.

In numerous projects, the initial solution idea goes unchallenged and eventually becomes the chosen project concept , and the common practice of today is to apply downstream analysis of a given alternative, rather than upstream evaluation of alternative concepts based on needs, goals and priorities. This tendency to define projects based on a preconceived idea of solution to the problem at hand is understandable, as the front-end can otherwise seem to have too few constraints to be managed. Going with a preconcieved solution from the beginning can however be highly problematic, as the initial solution idea often is based on a large amount of assumptions, and not ideal in terms of appropriateness or impact towards the desired outcomes . This is especially problematic for sustainability, as the amount of impacts and trade-offs to be considered and evaluated is even higher than in traditional projects . It is suggested that companies could prevent a significant amount down-stream sustainability issues from arising, by reallocating resources towards front-end innovation, where sustainability issues can be designed out of the future portfolio.

To exemplify, it is a common strategy for the building departments of organizations to base all their sustainability projects on how to build more buildings, parking lots, etc. with minimal environmental impact, but not to consider initiating projects that map which buildings they could entirely avoid building based on e.g. increased digitization of work, or optimization of the utilization of current space. For a manager in such an organization to simply become aware of this scoping bias and encourage further solution exploration based on desired outcomes, could have a significant potential in reducing the organizations' emissions and resource consumption.

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2. Create conditions for explorative Front-End Innovation

If you as a manager have been convinced of the potential value of prioritizing front-end eco-innovation, next step is to figure out how to systematically do so.

2.a Setting value-based priorities and goals

Defining clear priorities and goals for the organization portfolio, for programs within the portfolio, and for individual projects is commonly described as a key step to successfully achieving sustainable impact . This can sound simple, but explicitly formulating this is instrumental in keeping employees and external stakeholders aligned on the desired outcome, to ensure working in the same direction and to avoid excessive scope creep.

The UN Sustainable Development Goals is one of the most recognized set of defined sustainability goals with defined indicators for each goal. The SDG Compass is a systematic guide for businesses to use the SDGs to define priorities, set goals and integrate them into operations. It is described in the wiki-article Sustainability in Project and Portfolio Management

2.b Employing design competencies to manage front-end processes

Recognizing that the 'fuzzy' front-end can in fact become less fuzzy, and can be flexibly managed with appropriate tools, skillets and experience, is another key factor. Design is recognized as the framework for managing innovation, and designers and design engineers are increasingly utilized for their competencies and methodologies in managing and facilitating concept exploration and the complexity and uncertainty of front-end innovation.

2.e Consider the future

A common way

Front-End 'Delivery' Unit The Front-End Innovation Unit

Defining based on values and desired outcomes, rather than preconcieved solutions

Hunter gathering

Future forecasting

Team makeup

3. Move from a reactive to a pro-active, value-focused strategy

As sustainability is a new lense to view projects through, it requires rethinking... Move from reactive to pro-active.

"we concluded that there are three shifts that characterise the integration of sustainability and project management. Considering sustainability implies, firstly, a shift of scope in the management of projects: from managing time, budget and quality, to managing social, environmental, and economic impact. Secondly, it implies a shift of paradigm of project management: from an approach that can be characterised by predictability and controllability, to an approach that is characterised by flexibility, complexity and opportunity. And thirdly, considering sustainability implies a mind shift for the project manager: from delivering requested results, to taking responsibility for sustainable development in organisations and society."

Purpose driven.

4. Open up to external collaborative innovation

Management of meaningful sustainability projects, programs and portfolios can be especially complex, as the scope is beyond what a single organization, government or individual can solve alone.

"Individual organizations must be part of the solution, but they cannot be addressed within the organization alone or solved independently in other organizations." "The key to solving complex, systemic, long-term problems across sectors and levels is to address them together."

LFA Logical Framework

Mission-Oriented Innovation and Open Innovation

OECD Mission Action Lab. Danish Design Center

Developing a Mission-driven Portfolio for Systemic Impact

The Mission Playbook by Danish Design Center. For ambitious, longterm impact across organisations. "mission managers who focus on achieving a long-term vision of change for a wide range of stakeholders instead of internal organizational development."

Creating impact

(insert impact model)

"Creating impact means allowing room for the uncertainty that is an inevitable part of long-term missions. To create impact, we think less in single activities and more in portfolios. We must consider how to involve a wider field – for instance defined by a policy or market domain – to take part in achieving a concrete, measurable change. And most importantly, we must also set up mechanisms that facilitate a con- stant flow of learning from the activities we put in place, and have a manage- ment process in place that acts on these insights."

"Missions call for a structure that balances stability and agility – predictabil- ity and unpredictability. That means creating a governance structure for the mission work that leaves room for changing the project portfolio and the ac- tor landscape as the mission progresses. The foundation for making decisions like that is to build in loops of learning at the heart of the mission in order to constantly react and adapt to new learn- ings from both within and outside the mission ecosystem. This means, the task is not “just” to build the solution, but to create the sys- tem around the solution that makes its achievement possible. Value creation, then, becomes a task of working towards committing people to the mission in order to stimulate several smaller innovations that point in the same direc- tion rather than chasing the next big bang."

"This roadmap outlined not only project proposals, but “infrastructure” activities such as communication, new partnerships and investments in new tools and capabilities. Underpin- ning this we created a systematic learning mechanism - a process of on-go- ing portfolio assessment and adjustment. This mechanism turned out to be crucial in our management of the evolution of this mission."

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Open Innovation: Going beyond the individual organization

Limitations

"The tools required for this can perhaps be mastered more easily in big, resourceful companies, but larger companies may have difficulties in allowing the eco-innovation process to be open, informal and creative, aspects which contributed positively to the success of novel eco- innovations." ()