The third workshop of the Partners for the Amazon Platform Acceleration Program brought together entrepreneurs on June 26 and 27, in Manaus, and addressed the theme of Management for startups.
The activity was structured into four modules: Talent Management (facilitated by Rafael Ribeiro, from NESsT); Agile methodologies (facilitated by Diego Siqueira, from 4Four it); Accounting management (facilitated by accountant Silvana Macedo); Cost management and pricing (facilitated by Leonardo Ragazzini, from UFAM).
In the view of economist Ana Carolina Bastida, Coordinator of the Acceleration Program, this third meeting was important to improve the internal management processes of accelerated businesses. “Entrepreneurs have already gone through training in strategic planning, impact measurement and marketing, now is the time to look inside the business and get your house in order and structure yourself, to grow and receive investments”, he assesses.
A board game started programming. Created by NESsT, the Got Talent game covers 12 skills – judgment, credibility, refining, strategy, recruiting, measurement, operations, feedback, quality and consistency, partnerships, knowledge and network. Rafael Ribeiro guided the participation of the entrepreneurs, who soon found themselves challenged to establish communication with their peers in the game through different possibilities – mimes, word translation, description of situations associated with certain words. Gathered at tables, the formed pairs competed against each other, as only one pair would come out the winner per table.
“When we gamify any process, learning becomes enjoyable. We play, but we also learn. If it was a lecture, maybe we wouldn't have so much attention”, assesses Glauco Aguiar, from Manaós Tech, one of the businesses accelerated by the PPA Program. “The beginning of the game was the most complicated, because we didn't understand the rules well. So we were playing and learning. It even seems like an undertaking, we learn the rules of the game throughout the process”.
For Aline Iglesias, from Awi Superfoods, what was left of the game was the need for collaboration. “When people in an organization communicate and share their ideas, everything flows well. So much so that here we finished the game well before the other tables. We had collaboration between all the pairs”.
Other points of attention raised by the game were the need to master and understand the concepts of the business field and the importance of valuing people's skills in a strategic way.
Rafael Ribeiro also introduced entrepreneurs to a methodology on talent management, pointing out seven stages of an organization's talent development: attraction and recruitment; evaluation and selection; integration; training and development; Performance Management; retention; succession planning. For each stage, suitable tools were presented.
Throughout the process, the entrepreneurs pointed out cases in their own organizations that exemplified the stages, or even raised doubts about how to advance in the issues of selection and retention of talent.
“In Manioca there was a turnover (people turnover) very high in the team. Until we realized that it was necessary to focus much more on people than on qualification. With people aligned with the process, we stopped having this turnover. This takes work, demands the development of new skills, because they are usually younger people, but they create a bond with the business purpose”, reported Joanna Martins.
The company 100% Amazônia is already thinking about the succession stage: “The most important thing is to define the company's purposes and seek people who identify with them. We had an experience with an intern who was with us for a while, went out to look for other experiences and came back asking about a career plan. She became our quality coordinator, and has been with us for six years. It has already received other proposals, but it continues with the 100% Amazônia”, reported Joziane Alves,
Karina Lobato, former intern at 100% Amazônia and now responsible for the quality sector, pointed out what was decisive for her return and permanence: “At 100% Amazônia I rediscovered values with which I grew up, and that was very good. I was aligning my life, habits, with the company's philosophy”.
Rafael pointed out, at the end of the workshop, that the knowledge mobilized to carry out the workshop had much more of the function of sensitizing entrepreneurs and promoting openness to share their reflections with the group. “We have no idea of the impact that a workshop like this can have on the lives and history of these organizations. It touches me a lot to hear how their acting has changed from interactions like this. Which are often fast, and we think they're ephemeral, but they can have a really big reverberation if they touch people.”
Agility, accounting and financial management
The workshop also introduced entrepreneurs to methodologies for mindset, formation of agile teams and feedback techniques, with Diego Siqueira, from 4Four-It. Diego highlighted how individuals and interactions are as important as processes and tools, addressing methodologies such as focus groups in the development of products and services, the importance of listening to the customer and how to respond to changes, in the case of impactful businesses in particular. often better than following a laid-out plan.
Entrepreneurs participated in dynamics that sought to make them realize the relationship between their life purposes and those of their businesses, and were encouraged to apply the same process with employees of their organizations.
Diego also presented the Kanban tool, which allows the monitoring of all activities being carried out by the organization in a visual way, provides quick feedback and helps to measure time cycles mobilized for each task. Other feedback methodologies and metrics he covered were Hapiness Canvas and Return on Investment (ROI)
"I'm always connected with the universe of startups here in the region. But working with an acceleration program focused exclusively on sustainable products is the first time, and I have found this wonderful opportunity. I've seen a series of products that I never imagined were already on the market”, says Diego.
The entrepreneurs were also introduced to good practices and tools in accounting management by Silvana Macedo and worked on cost management and pricing, with Leonardo Regazzini, from the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM).
“At the beginning of the workshop I had two words to define what was happening there: cooperation and collaboration. And I leave with one more, which is a connection. They helped me with some of the demands I have in Carauari and I was able to help them make connections,” says Silvana.
The next workshop will take place in August 2019, and will address the topic Storytelling and successful negotiations.
About PPA
THE Partner Platform for the Amazon (PPA) it was created with the objective of leading the construction of innovative solutions for sustainable development in the Amazon with companies and the private sector, prioritizing investments in businesses with a social and environmental impact. In practice, PPA acts in the incubation and acceleration of entrepreneurs, in carrying out strategic studies to expand investments and through partnerships between companies, communities and governments.
Currently, the executive coordination of the PPA is exercised by the Institute for Conservation and Sustainable Development of the Amazon (IDESAM), the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the International Center for Tropical Agriculture (CIAT), the Amazon Conservation Team (ECAM) and the Peabiru Institute.
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