COVID-19, Innovation and Interconnection

As this pandemic plays out definitive answers have been hard to come by as the ground keeps moving under us. We hear a lot from governments and brands, but the spotlight is firmly on what is being done, not said. This virus shows just how interconnected everything is.

Populations look to their governments to solve all the problems, experts give their opinions, businesses try to find a way to survive and people suddenly feel the force of nature.

There is a lot of media coverage of all the possible ways in which we fall short of the ideal answers, but for me a crisis is a crucible for the kind of innovation that is hard to achieve in normal times. In a crisis people think harder and faster. Adversity leads to some shining examples of true systems thinking. Which means solving the right problem.

These examples come from private and public, businesses and individuals, experts and people with plain common sense who thought about something and made it happen.

1.      The COVID-19 symptom tracker app from Kings College London and ZOE

The problem: How can we get enough tests to know the real incidence and death rate in the population?

This is a medical question for which we tend to want medically-based answers. The difficulty is that a) it takes time to develop the test, b) we don’t have enough test kits even once we have a test, c) we can only currently test to see if people are COVID-19 positive now, not if they have had or are about to get the disease, d) many of the symptoms are consistent with other illnesses like flu or colds and e) you’d have to keep testing people and that could take resources away from the people who need them.

Kings College London and ZOE looked at the problem and reframed the question to get away from the constraints that exist and consider other ways to get to a reasonable estimate

Solving the right problem: How can we get a handle on the real incidence and death rate?

Turns out we can just ask people. The COVID-19 symptom tracker app asks people to report daily on how they are feeling, and any possible symptoms associated with COVID-19. All we need are the key symptoms and a whole lot of people to spend a minute a day reporting in.

Whilst self-selection and self-reporting have their challenges in representativeness and accuracy, this kind of data is longitudinal, can be reported quickly at low cost and we know how to adjust for the method’s main constraints. It may well prove to be the cleverest, most accurate option we have for what we need.

The COVID-19 symptom tracker app now has around 2 million users in the UK signed up to report daily. What a brilliant way to think differently instead of being constrained by all the things we can’t do.

https://www.kcl.ac.uk/news/symptom-tracker-app-hits-15-million-uk-users

2.      Life-saving Breathing Aids: Mercedes F1 team and UCL

The problem: We need more ventilators in hospitals

One of the primary sources of panic for health services apart from the expected number of deaths is that in critical cases people suffer horribly with respiratory problems and spend a long time in hospital requiring ventilation. Governments immediately looked for ventilator suppliers, but it turns out so was everyone else. In the UK the Government decided to ask industry to help provide ventilators and put out the “VentilatorChallengeUK”. The MercedesAMG Petronas F1 team along with UCL took up the challenge but met it in a slightly different way.

Solving the right problem: People need to get help breathing when they experience COVID-19 respiratory symptoms.

Instead of simply trying to build a ventilator as fast as possible, this group looked for a solution to the problem of helping people breathe. CPAP machines are often used in homes for respiratory issues such as overcoming sleep apnea. They are simpler, less technical, cheaper and far less complex than ventilators, so breathing difficulties can be addressed earlier and don't use limited expert resources.

I have no doubt that bringing together medical expertise (slow, expert, considered) and the engineers in a F1 crew (smart, practical, used to finding answers on the fly) made a difference. The solution avoids making trade-offs and brings benefits at every stage of the process by not accepting tacit assumptions and not being afraid to “challenge the client brief”.

https://www.mercedesamgf1.com/en/news/2020/2020-03/ucl-uclh-f1-develop-life-saving-breathing-aids/

3.      Feeding the NHS: Leon with Imperial and UCL NHS Trusts

The problem. How do we cover the cost of the food going to waste in the restaurant supply chain?

One of the massive side-effects of the lockdown is the huge amount of food that is in the supply chain and likely to go to waste. It isn’t easy to sell since people are at home and the outlet locations aren’t always where homes are. At the same time many restaurants and food service businesses are struggling to keep people employed. The owner of Leon decided to do something about it.

Solving the right problem: How can we use the food sitting in warehouses to help?

People working in hospitals need to eat, food chains need cash-flow and people need to feel they can help in some way.

What better way to bring all of those together in a health crisis than to put all that food to work helping the NHS? That is exactly what Leon have done. People can buy a meal for NHS workers through justgiving. Leon (and others) make up the orders and deliver them to hospitals. They have used mechanisms already in place to solve a new and critical problem. And prevented waste. Genius.

https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/FeedNHS?utm_term=73NP5kKnE

How we Define a Problem sets the scope for how we look for Solutions

Corporations talk a lot about disruptive innovation, but most great corporate innovation comes from rethinking and reframing problems within an organisation’s constraints. Working with the system, not against it.

In the same way, a pandemic is what it is. Global supply chains, health system constraints and the nature of a pathogen can’t be wished away. These examples show just how ingenious we can be when we are prepared to do the thinking to solve the right problem. Their successes show some common themes:

People-focused: The solutions all start with people and their needs

There are no side-effects, only effects: The full implications are thought through to minimise unintended consequences

And not or: The solutions often straddle dimensions or needs that are usually seen as either/or trade-offs

Solutions under constraints: The solutions take account of the constraints that can't be easily changed

Time-bound: The problems are all time-critical, so the solutions make best use of available mechanisms and resources

Diverse teams: The diverse skills and sectors of the teams involved led them to challenge the stated problem rather than accepting assumptions without question

Win:win solutions like these dig deeper into framing the problem so that the solutions don’t simply shift the problem elsewhere or create side-effects worse than the original problem. They take account of and use all elements of their ecosystems rather than focusing on single dimensions.

As a well-known systems-thinking expert (John D. Sterman) says, “There are no side effects—only effects. Those we thought of in advance, the ones we like, we call the main, or intended, effects, and take credit for them. The ones we didn’t anticipate, the ones that came around and bit us in the rear—those are the ‘‘side effects’’.

Sadly, it is all too easy to see other examples in the current situation where the “side-effects” will indeed come back and bite us, but these examples show what can be done. Where there's a will there's a way.