DMCAFF charts a path towards innovation
Over the course of five months, 60 members of the staff from the Municipal Department of Procurement, Assets and Funding Sources (DMCAFF) of the Porto City Council rolled up their sleeves to integrate innovation into their working model. This initiative was guided by Porto Digital, as part of the activities of the municipal initiative Porto Innovation Hub.
The ability to adapt and innovate is becoming increasingly crucial for the growth of organisations, which are gradually recognising the importance of involving their employees in the process of thinking about and embracing innovation.
It was in this context that the DMCAFF requested the support of the Porto Innovation Hub — an initiative dedicated to fostering innovation both across the city and within municipal teams — to jointly design a tailor-made programme, which they called the “Innovation Roadmap”.
According to several researchers (Hogan & Coote, 2014; Taha, Sirková, & Ferencová, 2016; Chen et al., 2018), the key to fostering innovation lies in organisational culture. Organisational culture can be defined as a pattern of shared values that helps employees understand the organisation and, in turn, provides behavioural norms to be followed (Brettel, Chomik, & Flatten, 2015). Beyond values and norms, a company’s culture is also shaped by the products and services it delivers, as well as interpersonal relationships.
Thus, over the course of five months (from February to July 2023), DMCAFF’s “Innovation Roadmap” equipped its staff with knowledge and creative skills to support the implementation of innovation processes and the transformation of ideas into projects that respond to the department’s actual needs, encouraging autonomy and confidence.
The implementation process of the “Innovation Roadmap”
The first step was an exploratory session in which objectives and expectations were identified, and challenges were assessed from a comprehensive DMCAFF perspective. Based on this premise, the programme’s structure was designed with a focus on clearly defining the problem, designing a people-centred approach, and driving behavioural change.
The programme was developed in three key phases:
- Training in innovation techniques and tools tailored to the specific context and needs.
- Co-creation of a tailored model or framework for DMCAFF’s innovation process and the organisational culture to drive it.
- Strengthening internal autonomy in managing both emerging and ongoing projects.
A noteworthy element of the process was the formation of “innovation duos”, acting as pivots of innovation, responsible for leading the transformation of ideas into concrete projects.
In the long term, the application of the strategies learned contributed to cultivating a culture of innovation within the department, while also reinforcing collaboration, knowledge-sharing, and capacity-building. These pillars are essential to generating innovative solutions and driving overall organisational growth.
This initiative brought about significant and transformative change. Building on this progress, Porto Digital and DMCAFF resumed their collaboration in 2024 through the event “i9 – Ideas Without Limits”.
The initiative marked the peak of a two-year journey led by Porto Digital to promote innovation within the municipal community — a period during which principles and practices were shared that continue to strengthen the culture of innovation within Porto City Council.