Building Equitable Thinking and EQUITABLE INNOVATION into Project Management
A conversation with an Equity Sequence® learner
by Suhlle Ahn
From the outset of my conversation with Marnie Jackson, I could tell that she just GETS it.
She sees the potential to make widespread, ongoing equitable impact using Equity Sequence®. The key, in her view, is to seed or build Equity Sequence® into projects in structural ways. To lay a foundation that supports a process of continuous equitable thinking.
And because Marnie’s line of work is Project Management, it’s literally her job to figure out how to build those structures and lay that foundation. It’s the stuff of her work.
Marnie is a Project Manager at Busch® Systems, a Canadian recycling retailer and designer, known for revolutionizing the recycling industry. They’re also a certified B Corp.
Marnie Jackson (she/her) and Suhlle Ahn (she/her)
Marnie recently learned Equity Sequence® through a favorite Tidal Equality partner, Sandbox Centre. And she’s starting to apply it in ways that illustrate the concept of equitable innovation.
What’s equitable innovation? We describe it as the process of creating new or improved products, services, and processes that result in more equitable and inclusive experiences and outcomes.
Sounds abstract?
Let’s look at two examples from Marnie’s work—one small and one large—to make it more concrete.
An equitable innovation can be as small as a tweak…
As we started our zoom call, Marnie mentioned almost as an aside how she’s already used Equity Sequence® in a small way.
“One of the projects I'm overseeing,” she said, “is the implementation of an IT service management system. We’re getting close to launching.”
Known informally as the Busch® System Support Portal, it's a program that allows any employee to report a problem or request service for anything IT-related. At the same time, it allows the company to track these submissions against their IT assets. If all goes well, the long-term plan is to add in support requests for other departments, such as Facilities.
“It’s a nice, user-friendly program,” she explained. “However, you either need to access it via your cell phone or a computer.”
It was actually a co-worker who asked Marnie if she’d thought about the Equity Sequence® questions in rolling out the plan. Marnie realized she had not. But doing so made her think about their warehouse staff.
“They’re on the floor and don’t have access to a computer,” she realized. “So how would they be able to submit a request for support?"
She came up with a short-term and long-term solution. Short-term, they’ll modify the submission form to allow a user to submit a request on behalf of another person. After the initial product launch, they’ll install iPad stations on the warehouse floor.
“It raised the question of how equitably we had set up the plan,” she admitted. “Once we roll this out and have the iPad stations working, we will add further, continuous improvement components. We’ll add a section to look at alternative ways to make the support portal even more accessible and inclusive.”
An audible version for ticket submissions is on the list of considerations. So, too, are versions of the portal translated into additional languages, to better serve their diverse workforce.
“We’re adding in these extra components,” she said, “which, honestly, we didn't originally plan for.”
It’s an example of a small-scale equitable innovation, because individuals who would have been disadvantaged–inadvertently–by the original plan, will now benefit along with their colleagues. For these people who can now submit a request, this small equitable innovation is a meaningful one. However minor, it results in a more inclusive, equitable outcome.
An equitable innovation can trigger exponential change
Moving on, it was our discussion of Marnie’s large-scale plans that REALLY got her animated. And it got me thinking about the universal relevance of her ideas.
Marnie is overseeing a BIG initiative at Busch® Systems. She’s helping create a Project Management Office (PMO). This PMO will serve as a central hub for the company. It will establish guidelines and set ground rules for any future project, large or small.
Yet what struck me was how much of what she described could apply to ANY project, ANYWHERE.
Sitting on our zoom call, I could almost see Marnie looking out over an imaginary blank canvas. It was as though she was envisioning endless possibilities for how Equity Sequence® could be applied.
“There are tons and tons of ideas of things we could do,” she said.
She used the term exponential growth to describe the scope and breadth of change she envisioned. “I think there’s huge potential.”
As I learned, Project Managers go through a certification process to become certified in the profession.
And Project Management as a discipline relies on a shared framework and shared concepts. For example, there are five stages defined for any project:
Initiating
Planning
Executing
Monitoring and Controlling
Closing
(For a mini history of Project Management, read this.)
Marnie’s training—combined with an imaginative and expansive mind!—got her thinking about how and where she might weave Equity Sequence® into the various frameworks at various stages of a project. She gave several examples.
“Project management involves a lot of tracking and documentation,” she explained. “And with any project management plan, there is an overall plan and a set of sub plans.”
Examples of the latter might include a communication management plan, resource management plan, risk management plan, and so forth. Anyone trained in Equity Sequence® who uses these documents could apply the questions to them.
“You could incorporate Equity Sequence® into these existing sub plans,” she explained. “Or you could potentially create Equity Sequence® as its own sub-management plan for Equity Sequence®-trained users. But either way, you would be incorporating the practice into your policies and documentation framework.”
Elaborating further, Marnie gave the example of a stakeholder analysis and requirements traceability matrix.
"When creating the framework for a tool like this, you could build in variables tied to Equity Sequence®. Project Managers and Coordinators trained in Equity Sequence® use could then complete and rely on this in the course of executing a project.”
Another example involved the discovery process and the collection requirements process for any project:
“Discovery is a massive part of any project,” she explained. “And as part of discovery, there are various templates, matrices, frameworks, and documents. I could see adding the practice of Equity Sequence® to many of these. It would prompt Sequence®-trained people who are going to be running those projects to ask those questions from the get-go.”
She gave yet another example:
“Every project’s purpose is to create a unique product or service and involves collecting requirements. So imagine if you’re working with Equity Sequence® in mind while collecting those requirements, while creating that unique product or service itself, and in the tasks that you execute to complete the project…Anyone executing a project that’s following the PMO framework will then always be asking those questions.”
In this way, equitable thinking will become part of how future Project Coordinators and Project Managers carry out their work. Equitable thinking, to put it one way, will become part of their Standard Operating Procedure.
Equity Sequence® as a mentality and mindset
Some of this terminology can sound inaccessible. “Stakeholder analysis and requirements traceability matrix,” for example, is a bear. But Marnie made it clear that the appeal of Equity Sequence® to her was quite the opposite. It was the simplicity of the Equity Sequence®.
“That's what I liked about your program,” she said. “It's not about complexity, honestly. It's a mentality.”
Marnie also used the term, “continuous improvement mindset” to describe her vision for the PMO. In doing so, she was taking a page from Lean Six Sigma—a methodology she’s also been trained in.
In fact, it may well have been her training in Lean that helped her "get" the potential of Equity Sequence®. Why? Because Equity Sequence® was developed with principles from Lean and Agile in mind. Among these, the idea of continuous improvement.
Tidal co-founders Anna Dewar Gully and Dr. Kristen Liesch had the idea of continuous improvement—but toward more equitable outcomes—in mind when they created Equity Sequence®. And they now help organizations find ways to scale their use of Equity Sequence® to unleash the potential for constant equitable improvement and innovation.
In short, the synergies Marnie envisioned were hardly coincidental. They’re there by design.
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Marnie’s plan to weave Equity Sequence® into the structural framework supporting all future projects at Busch® Systems is another concrete example of equitable innovation—this time on a large scale.
By incorporating Equity Sequence® into various planning documents and at various project stages, she’s laying the groundwork for a potential chain reaction of equitable thinking. Countless people working on countless projects could learn and use Equity Sequence® and produce more equitable outcomes as they carry them out.
While her plans still have to be put into action, they reveal the potential for immeasurable impact. And as Marnie made clear, these ideas are just the start.
I hope it’s just the start of our following Marnie’s progress. I plan to check in again for future updates. And I look forward to hearing about all the ideas she and her teammates come up with AND sharing them with our readers.
So stay tuned…