The Virtual First project was born from the realization that something had to be done to facilitate the adaptation of organizations and people to this new reality. One of the premises was that the adaptation process should be supported by a computer platform that would allow the development, in the virtual space, of activities normally performed in a physical environment. This prototype was later used and improved, for the development of an innovative platform, preferably oriented towards teaching and professional training and that allows the automation of a large part of the teaching process. The platform adapts to any teaching methodology, from the most traditional to the most modern trends, even supporting a new methodology that we call Inbound Learning, only possible with this type of solution. In the implementation phase, the authors used the Agile methodology, in a model called Crivosoft Agile Framework. This model for developing IT solutions only differs from other existing models by involving the business analyst in manually loading tables with real data.
TopIntroduction
Virtual First project emerged from Crivosoft’s identification of a set of changes resulting from the forced adaptation of organizations to the confinement motivated by the Covid-19 pandemic and by the increasing presence of emerging technologies with profound impact on human daily life.
Crivosoft is a Portuguese company, created seven years ago, dedicated to the digital transformation of organizations, focusing on the development of innovative solutions in the areas of education and marketing.
The initial concern of Crivosoft was to reflect on the future of work and what would need to be done in organizations, in processes, and with people to minimize the transition to a new, more digital world.
This “new world” is characterized by increasingly digital consumers, a culture of permanent innovation, increasingly accelerated decision-making, a growing legion of freelancers, increasingly temporary teams, more frequent use of telecommuting, and increasingly virtual meetings, to name just a few firm trends.
One idea that we had from the start was that any solution that was intended to be implemented, to attack this extremely complex problem, could only succeed if there was a computer platform that facilitated the whole process.
We also felt that such a platform should ensure the following requirements in the execution of the organizations tasks:
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Independence from physical location, which would imply that tasks could be performed from anywhere on the globe;
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Independence from any human resource, which would imply the existence of workflows, supported by automatic aids in the context of their execution;
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Independence from operating hours, which would imply 24x7 operation and time zone management.
Given the fact that the task of its development would be impossible to accomplish with only enterprise's existing resources, we accepted a challenge launched by the Instituto Politécnico de Santarém, to move forward into a co-creation process.
Given the principles we had identified and that were fully accepted by Instituto Politécnico de Santarém, we decided to change the project's name to Virtual First: Anywhere, Anytime, Anyteam, and that was the name that was introduced in the Demola platform (Demola Global, 2022).
Figure 1.
Virtual First: Anywhere, anytime, anyteam on the DEMOLA platform
The connection to the Instituto Politécnico de Santarém also led to the reorientation of the project to the Teaching area, so that we could present results in a short period of time, focusing on an area where there was, in both organizations, experience and knowledge.
With this University/Company collaboration, we intended to clarify the following study objectives:
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Whether it is possible to create a platform that allows the execution in a virtual environment, of most of the functions of the physical environment, of a certain organization in the service sector;
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Is it possible for such a platform to contribute to the improvement of the performance of these organizations;
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The use of an ideation methodology will lead to better and faster results in an Institution;
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It will be possible for mixed University/Company teams to produce good results, despite differences in practices and approaches.
TopPartnership Between Polytechnic Institute And Crivosoft
Crivosoft maintains partnership relations with the Instituto Politécnico de Santarém, with which it maintains a collaborative partnership that includes the acceptance of interns and the joint development of initiatives.