Bnode. Digital done right.

Life as a freelancer, running an agency (or any business in fact – large or small) can be extremely tiring. We get it, and we feel your pain.

We all have business decisions to make, from daily operational choices to long-term strategic moves. Sometimes, even deciding what to have for lunch can be a stretch! And when you add being an ethical and responsible business into the mix there’s another added level of complexity, with even more things to take into consideration.

Before you know it, you’re caught on the horns of an ethical dilemma. Having to make a tough choice where you risk coming to a rash decision, or worse – compromising your moral principles and ethical values. Not good. Instead, what if there was a way to make quicker and better decisions on who to work with, what to take on, and how much to charge for it – whilst fully taking into account your ethical values and responsible and sustainable business considerations?

Thanks to people such as Khandiz Joni and her ethical decision making framework, there is.

Khandiz Joni, via the Association of Sustainability Practitioners, shared this handy framework for assessing project fit and your capacity to take on paid work, pro bono work or volunteer work. Should ethical fit over financial necessity be the main motivating factor, of course.

As if it wasn’t already enough to help us all out with ethical decision making, she’s even included a scoring system for deciding how to charge for paid work and what your fees should be.

As Khandiz says “This decision-making tool helps you assess new ideas, client projects and self-initiated work through a short series of questions. Each one looks at a different part of what makes work sustainable”.

Here, Khandiz means sustainable in the sense of the ability to be maintained at a certain rate or level, or to actually be able to do it – i.e. without burning yourself out.

Not the other definition of sustainability, in the sense of the avoidance of the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance (important though this is as part of a wider ethical stance and consideration).

Basically, the work or project should be ethical and align with your values, but also be sustainable in the sense that you can actually take it on and do it within the time available. (E.G. Your capacity).

Here at Bnode, our team has already adopted elements of the framework, using it to help with ethical decision making, and it can benefit you and your business too.

As a starting point, Khandiz suggests using the framework to “check how well the project fits your creative interests, how it contributes to your wider ecosystem of work and whether you have the time, capacity and financial means to take it on.” Which are all important considerations.

And that:

“You can use it for paid work, unpaid collaborations and personal ideas. It helps you notice patterns, see where your limits are and decide how to resource yourself well before saying yes. Or no, if that’s what is best for you.”

So, it’s very versatile, and is a great way of cutting through any ethical dilemmas and quandaries you find yourself in, avoiding analysis paralysis and indecision. Anything that helps you come to a quicker and better decision has got to be good, right? We think so.

You can use it as a framework. But how does the framework operate?

There are three parts to the framework:

1. Suitability
2. Impact
3. Resourcing and Reward

And you score each question in each section, from 0 to 3.

This gives you a total score, and a clear indication of whether:

• The work or project is a good fit for you,

• It’s OK to do but it needs some tweaking, or

• You shouldn’t do it or get involved.

As Khandiz says, it’s “about choosing with care so that you stay energised, grounded and able to give your best attention to the things that matter” and you can “weight sections more heavily depending on what matters most at the time”.

You can make an informed ethical decision, using your head, heart and gut feeling, and staying true to yourself by being honest.

Without totally giving the game away and divulging the entire contents of the framework, this is what each one of the individual sections covers.

Once you’ve assessed all of the above, you tot up the scores from the three sections and come to an informed decision.

A score range metric and associated traffic light system gives you a simple way to interpret the results:

• “45 to 32 [is a ] strong green light. This is aligned, nourishing and sustainable.” All good and all systems go for taking it on.

• “31 to 22 [is] Proceed [but] with conditions. Adjust the scope, timeline or price. Decide what needs to shift to make it sustainable.” This is green and amber lights at the traffic-lights, get ready to proceed when safe to do so. The work or project is still do-able, but with some caveats.

• “21 to 12 [is] Caution. Only take it if there is a compelling long-term value.” An amber light, you could do it but only if the reward outweighs the time and effort.

• “Below 12 [is a hard] No. This will drain you or take you off course.” A red light and red flag, warning signals that you should leave it well alone and walk away.

You can even use this system for working out and deciding how you’re going to charge for paid work, and what your fees should be.

So, when considering if you want to take on paid work, the scoring system gives you the following range of indications:

If this would be useful and is of interest to you, we’ll share Khandiz’s PDF with the full range of assessment questions on it with you. You can even use it to create a spreadsheet, as Khandiz has helpfully included everything you need to do that.

Khandiz has given full and express permission for other people to publicise and share her PDF document and approach, so we’re perfectly OK to disseminate it, no worries there.

If you want it, all we ask for in return is the opportunity to share our ethical web design and development and ethical marketing service offering with you and start a dialogue, so get in touch with us here at Bnode to get the PDF.