Poor Philanthropist II: New approaches to sustainable development

The second title in the Poor Philanthropist Series, this monograph represents the culmination of a six-year journey; a journey characterised in the first three years by in-depth qualitative research which resulted in an understanding of philanthropic traditions among people who are poor in southern Africa and gave rise to new and innovative concepts which formed the focus of the research monograph The Poor Philanthropist: How and Why the Poor Help Each Other, published by the Southern Africa-United States Centre for Leadership and Public Values in 2005

Artificial intelligence: opportunities and implications for the future of decision making

Artificial intelligence has arrived. In the online world it is already a part of everyday life, sitting invisibly behind a wide range of search engines and online commerce sites. It offers huge potential to enable more efficient and effective business and government but the use of artificial intelligence brings with it important questions about governance, accountability and ethics. Realising the full potential of artificial intelligence and avoiding possible adverse consequences requires societies to find satisfactory answers to these questions. This report sets out some possible approaches, and describes some of the ways government is already engaging with these issues

Participatory Modelling and Decision Support for Natural Resources Management in Climate Change Research

The ever greater role given to public participation by laws and regulations, in particular in the field of environmental management calls for new operational methods and tools for managers and practitioners. This paper analyses the potentials and the critical limitations of current approaches in the fields of simulation modelling (SM), public participation (PP) and decision analysis (DA), for natural resources management within the context of climate change research. The potential synergies of combining SM, PP and DA into an integrated methodological framework are identified and a methodological proposal is presented, called NetSyMoD (Network Analysis – Creative System Modelling – Decision Support), which aims at facilitating the involvement of stakeholders or experts in policy - or decision-making processes (P/DMP). A generic P/DMP is formalised in NetSyMoD as a sequence of six main phases: (i) Actors analysis; (ii) Problem analysis; (iii) Creative System Modelling; (iv) DSS design; (v) Analysis of Options; and (vi) Action taking and monitoring. Several variants of the NetSyMoD approach have been adapted to different contexts such as integrated water resources management and coastal management, and, recently it has been applied in climate change research projects. Experience has shown that NetSyMoD may be a useful framework for skilled professionals, for guiding the P/DMP, and providing practical solutions to problems encountered in the different phases of the decision/policy making process, in particular when future scenarios or projections have to be considered, such as in the case of developing and selecting adaptation policies. The various applications of NetSyMoD share the same approach for problem analysis and communication within the group of selected actors, based upon the use of creative thinking techniques, the formalisation of human-environment relationships through the DPSIR framework, and the use of multi-criteria analysis through a Decision Support System (DSS) software.Modelling, Public Participation, Natural Resource Management, Policy, Decision-Making, Governance, DSS

Improving project management planning and control in service operations environment.

Projects have evidently become the core activity in most companies and organisations where they are investing significant amount of resources in different types of projects as building new services, process improvement, etc. This research has focused on service sector in attempt to improve project management planning and control activities. The research is concerned with improving the planning and control of software development projects. Existing software development models are analysed and their best practices identified and these have been used to build the proposed model in this research. The research extended the existing planning and control approaches by considering uncertainty in customer requirements, resource flexibility and risks level variability. In considering these issues, the research has adopted lean principles for planning and control software development projects. A novel approach introduced within this research through the integration of simulation modelling techniques with Taguchi analysis to investigate ‗what if‘ project scenarios. Such scenarios reflect the different combinations of the factors affecting project completion time and deliverables. In addition, the research has adopted the concept of Quality Function Deployment (QFD) to develop an automated Operations Project Management Deployment (OPMD) model. The model acts as an iterative manner uses ‗what if‘ scenario performance outputs to identify constraints that may affect the completion of a certain task or phase. Any changes made during the project phases will then automatically update the performance metrics for each software development phases. In addition, optimisation routines have been developed that can be used to provide management response and to react to the different levels of uncertainty. Therefore, this research has looked at providing a comprehensive and visual overview of important project tasks i.e. progress, scheduled work, different resources, deliverables and completion that will make it easier for project members to communicate with each other to reach consensus on goals, status and required changes. Risk is important aspect that has been included in the model as well to avoid failure. The research emphasised on customer involvement, top management involvement as well as team members to be among the operational factors that escalate variability levels 3 and effect project completion time and deliverables. Therefore, commitment from everyone can improve chances of success. Although the role of different project management techniques to implement projects successfully has been widely established in areas such as the planning and control of time, cost and quality; still, the distinction between the project and project management is less than precise and a little was done in investigating different levels of uncertainty and risk levels that may occur during different project phase.United Arab Emirates Governmen

Collaborative public procurement: Institutional explanations of legitimised resistance

This paper reports on the barriers to regional collaborative procurement developed from an action research study of five UK public authorities in the emergency services sector. Despite political pressure to procure collaboratively, strategic avoidance responses of institutional logics and symbolic tick boxing legitimise stakeholder resistance to isomorphic forces and entrench operational barriers. The prevailing institutional logics are that regional collaborative procurement is unsuitable and risky, derived from procurement's lack of status and the emotive nature of the emergency services. Symbolic tick boxing is seen through collaboration that is limited to high profile spend categories, enabling organisations to demonstrate compliance while simultaneously retaining local decision-making for less visible, but larger areas of spend. The findings expose choice mechanisms in public procurement by exploring tensions arising from collaborative procurement strategies within, and between, organisations. Multiple stakeholders' perspectives add to current thinking on how organisations create institutional logics to avoid institutional pressure to procure collaboratively and how stakeholders legitimise their actions

A unified data: framework for mapping underground: Project Iceberg. Work package 2, defining the problem space for an integrated data operating system above and below ground

Project Iceberg is an exploratory project undertaken by Future Cities Catapult, British Geological Survey (BGS) and Ordnance Survey (OS). The project aims to address the serious issue of the lack of information about the ground beneath our cities and the un-coordinated way in which the subsurface space is managed. Difficulties relating to data capture and sharing of information about subsurface features are well understood by some sectors and have been explored in previous research and industry reports. This study does not replicate past work, but rather reviews outcomes and explores the barriers to wider uptake of subsurface management systems. The long-term goal is to help increase the viability of land for development and de-risk future investment through better management of subsurface data and ground-related risk. To help achieve this, our study aims to enable a means to discover and access relevant data about the ground’s physical condition and assets housed within it, in a way that is suitable for modern data driven decision making processes. The project considers both physical infrastructure i.e. underground utilities and natural ground conditions i.e. geological data and is divided into three different work packages: Work Package 1: Market research and analysis Work Package 2: Data operation systems and interoperability for a subsurface data platform Work Package 3: Identification of use cases for a subsurface data platform This report summarises the findings of work package 2

Efficiency and Collaboration in Hardware Development: A Lean Approach : Case Study

Companies strive towards perfection in their product development processes and want to stay as competitive as possible. In order to achieve that objective, emphasis needs to be put on streamlining the process. Therefore, this thesis explores the Lean methodology from a product development perspective and showcases the effectiveness of the value stream mapping (VSM) and design structure matrix (DSM). The research is executed at a company specialising in energy and marine power solutions and is outlined as a case study. Several research angles have been utilised, which enabled the recognition of diversity in the collected data and information. The methodology is divided into two primary elements: 1) analysing a case project from a component functionality and managerial perspective, and 2) executing a value stream analysis of the hardware development process, which is utilised to develop automation components for complex power solutions. The qualitative research focuses on achieving a holistic understanding of a hardware development process (HWDP) through VSM and DSM. Quantitative data can mainly be seen in the case project analysis, where the output is formed on historical data from an application lifecycle management system and Internal documentation platform. In line with the methodology, the thesis aimed to answer the following research questions: RQ1: How can the process be streamlined by identifying inefficiencies and proposing improvements? RQ2: How can cooperation and collaboration be improved to reduce overall development lead time? The results of the thesis are categorised based on the research methodology’s two primary elements. The project analysis and current state findings have identified the challenges related to outsourcing, communication, collaboration, and technological knowledge gaps. A cross-functional VSM allowed for capturing the information flow between the departments and identifying the wastes and bottlenecks in the process. A value assessment resulted in 47 VA, 16 RNVA, and 8 NVA activities. The NVA activities were analysed, and improvement suggestions were generated, focusing on stakeholder communication, supplier relationships, testing processes, change management, release meetings, and field testing. The DSM enabled the visualisation of dependencies between tasks and structural changes with partitioning. Based on simulations comparing the structural changes between the two DSMs, a 50 % decrease in lead time was identified. However, the implementation feasibility of the new structure is unclear, and further evaluation must be carried out in collaboration with the stakeholders. The thesis uncovered five managerial implications related to holistic process overview, effective outsourcing, improved in-house expertise, robust project planning and scheduling, and continuous improvement. This comprehensive efficiency analysis of the HWDP can be considered a success as it has pinpointed the crucial aspects that can be utilised to achieve an optimal future state of the process

Business design: strategy practice in innovation consulting

Escalating complexity of the business world establishes an organisation’s ability to innovate as its greatest competitive advantage. And as linear, rational approaches have proven insufficient for the goal, executives seek novel, creative ways to develop and realise breakthrough strategies. The concept of design thinking, centring around empathy, invention and learning, becomes instrumental in tackling business challenges and supporting innovation initiatives. By bringing about a hands-on toolkit, design professionals become well-equipped in developing offerings, improving operations and crafting strategies. Over the past decade, the discipline blending strategy with de'sign began to emerge in specialised consultancy. The large design firm, such as IDEO, Fjord and Doblin, launch strategic offering to drive business growth and align organisations. In parallel, design-led approaches thrive in innovation practices at the consulting majors, including BCG, McKinsey and Deloitte. The insider research aims to establish the relevance of business design by linking its practice to a holistic theoretical framework. Defining and describing the core approach of the discipline provides insights for both professionals and scholars at the intersection of design and strategic management