2. Flexible and Adaptive Management This section describes how the flexible and adaptive management approach taken by the Facility Manager contributed to the achievement of results, and the extension of reach beyond original targets. ‘Flexible and Adaptive management’ results The flexible and adaptive approach to programme management delivered: • Adaptive, agile and results oriented project management which exceeded logframe targets by over 900% at Impact and over 1100% at Outcome. • Rapid reapportioning of budgets and adapted activities to cope with COVID-19 waves and multiple lockdowns. • Building scenarios for maximising results and impact for the vulnerable people through programme flexibility and adaptiveness. 136 change requests processed across both portfolios. Each change in project was informed by increased value for money, reaching more people, increasing impact through depth of breadth. • Positive changes in business practice such as the Sea Freight Flower project which resulted in an additional 30 shipments of flowers saving over 3,000 MT of CO2. • Increases in successful partnerships totalling 331 partners by the end of the programme doubling the original number of partners. • Excellent participation of partners at high level learning and sharing events.
Building partnership through regular communication: The Facility Manager explicitly adopted a partnership management approach based upon principles of trust, clarity and flexibility to guide ways of working, which was achieved through regular engagement and open discussion. This approach was taken to building partnerships with VSCF project lead partners as well as with the FCDO. The Facility Manager set up routines for regular engagement with partners, including daily emails/calls, weekly check-ins, and monthly meetings. A quarterly review process was established whereby lead and brand partners came together to review progress, lessons were discussed, and decisions about action taken. Regular communication with partners and the FCDO was a central pillar to the shared risk management strategy, given the risks identified in delivering a programme at speed, in the context of a pandemic, with high profile organisations. The FCDO team worked collaboratively with the Facility Manager and took joint responsibility for decisions. “We really appreciated the Facility Manager’s offer of weekly meetings given the complexity of the programme and the level of public scrutiny we expected from this project because we were working with large profit-making businesses. Throughout this programme the Facility Manager has always been ahead and on top of programmatic issues and brought these to us early, providing well thought through scenarios so that we had all the information available to make informed decisions in good time.” Raania Rizvi VSCF Lead Adviser (August 2021-December 2021), FCDO
The Facility Manager engaged with FCDO every week throughout the Facility implementation to keep them informed about progress, risks, strategic communications (over 70 weekly meetings were organised with FCDO by the Facility Manager). Monthly, quarterly and wrap up meetings with partners also enabled discussions around management issues as well as the strategic matters. Brand partners were invited in quarterly meetings whereas the lead delivery partners, Facility Manager and the FCDO met every month to discuss strategic direction and progress of the projects. This also enabled early identification of risks and addressing these in a timely manner. While this process was rigorous, it was also appreciated by several partners and FCDO as it enabled strong ownership of partners, clarity of communications, reflective review of past quarter while looking for future ideas. The Facility Manager provided simple standard templates which were used by all 8 projects for reporting using MS PowerPoint instead of long reports every month. Divisions of the monthly and quarterly meetings between two sessions (45 minutes for strategic discussion and 45 minutes for management issues including MEL) was hugely effectively in engaging with the correct stakeholders in each session. Brand partners and FCDO were not required to participate in the management session where the FM and the lead delivery partner discussed management matters and resolved those quickly. Flexibility integrated into management processes. Flexibility and agility were essential to respond quickly to the rapidly evolving contextual challenges caused by the pandemic. For example, unanticipated surges in COVID-19 infection rates in Bangladesh in August 2021 and in October 2021 forced factory closures and disrupted the implementation of project activities across the garments portfolio. The Facility Manager supported partners to adjust workplans and prioritise activities which could be conducted without physical interaction during lockdowns. This helped provide much-needed immediate support to workers and did not detract from overall projects’ objectives. Equally, the Facility Manager introduced new activities in response to traction from within the sector, to support partners’ ambitions to take an innovation to scale. For example, the Sea Freight Flowers project attracted considerable interest from within the industry. To promote the potential economic, social and environmental impact of the sea freight on trade from Kenya to Europe and UK, the Facility Manager produced a CO2 emission study, an economic appraisal and a business case to strengthen sea freight uptake. This was complemented by an awareness and training campaign for 200 growers in Kenya. Subsequently 30 additional consignments have 8
