Same old story, same old result

Over the years I have seen a very familiar story play out in organisations trying to integrate sustainability into their business.

The story often goes like this…

An incoming CEO wants to make a difference, declares sustainability a top priority, launches a sustainability change program, hires top consultants and talent, invests millions of dollars and thousands of hours of management effort, then enthusiasm fades, targets are not met and then everyone settles for a mediocre result.

As I explain in our free guide on “The Four Mistakes Sabotaging your Sustainability Efforts and what you can do about it”, one of the main reasons these initiatives fail is that businesses are using old 20th century management tools and methods to solve new complex 21st century problems and the gantt chart is one of those old 20th century management tools.

Why gantt charts don’t work for complex sustainability initiatives

The humble gantt chart is a staple of any project management training program and is commonly used by sustainability people using what I refer to as the “ready, aim, fire” approach and usually involves some variation on the following sequence.

First you measure your baseline, then identify the sustainability opportunities, set some targets, create a business case, implement your strategy, and then measure and report on the results.

This approach is fantastic if your initiative involves an established solution like adding solar to your buildings where you know what the outcomes are going to be.

But if you have ever used this approach to try something more complex like achieving net zero, developing circular economy solutions or creating a new sustainable product and service your beautiful looking gantt chart probably began to unravel as soon as you hit the implementation stage.

Why? Because in sustainability we are trying to create new scalable sustainability solutions that are often innovative or disruptive in an environment of extreme uncertainty and tools like gantt charts are simply not designed to manage the uncertainty that comes with creating new ideas.

That’s where innovation methods and processes come into play. Innovation provides a framework for managing the uncertainty and complexity associated with sustainability.

One particular innovation framework that is perfectly suited to sustainability initiatives is the lean startup method. Whilst it was designed with startups in mind it can also be used as a management framework for sustainability programs, projects, and initiatives.

The Lean Startup Methodology

A startup is a human institution designed to deliver a new product or service under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Eric Ries – Entrepreneur and author of the Lean Startup

Existing companies are in the business of executing business models whilst startups, like sustainability teams, are in the business of discovering new business models. This distinction is at the heart of the lean startup method. The lean startup method has three key elements:

First, rather than write a detailed business plan based on what amounts to a series of best guesses, lean startup practitioners accept that all they have are a series of untested hypotheses. These hypotheses are organised using a tool called the business model canvas which describes the basic building blocks of a business model – in other words how your sustainability initiative delivers value for you and your stakeholders.

Second, lean startup practitioners then test these assumptions by soliciting stakeholder feedback to test their hypotheses. They do this by talking to stakeholders about all aspects of the business model with an emphasis on speed within a build, measure, and learn cycle. The feedback is used to adjust the assumptions and then repeat the cycle with minor adjustments to the offering (iterations) or changes in direction (pivots) where the idea is simply not working. In some cases this phase also involves building a prototype or minimum viable product (MVP) to allow customers to provide feedback.

Third, the lean startup process uses agile development which is a methodology derived from the software industry. Rather than using the “ready, aim, fire” waterfall development process described above, agile development is based on developing a solution iteratively and in small measurable features with constant customer testing and feedback – a bit like building a home one brick at a time.

Case Study – Removing guesswork from farming

When the team at Fasal, an agritech group that is part of the global Monsanto Company, identified that farmers in India were not getting the best price possible for their produce they set out to help these farmers. They identified a number of possible solutions but eventually settled on an idea to provide farmers with access to market price information.

“We conducted about 11 experiments of which 3 were very successful. One of them was centered around providing information to farmers. Initially we were thinking about providing information like what to plant at what time, along with information about market price. However, the former would have required agricultural specialists, so we scrapped the idea.” Deepa Bachu, Fasal

The team then set about testing their assumptions on the top 3 ideas by recruiting 15 farmers for a trial. They built a minimum viable product which involved one of the team members simply manually sending the farmers an SMS with the market prices once a day.

 They then used feedback from the farmers to continuously build out the product through a series of small iterations of the product like changing from a text message to providing an automated voice message (one member would record a script with the days market prices) and sent this to the farmers.

Of the 15 farmers, 12 went on to use the product extensively providing the team with enough confidence to build out a full solution. The team at Fasal have now helped over 2 million small farmers in India get a better price for their produce.

Conclusion

I am not saying you should throw away gantt charts as a management tool but you need to make sure you are using the right tool for the right job.

If your sustainability initiative, project, or program involves doing something new and for the first time then you need to use a management framework like the lean startup method that is specifically designed for managing the uncertainty and complexity that comes with these types of projects.

If you would like to learn how to do this then you should explore our innovation services menu.