desperately seeking simplicity – why frugal innovation could be the answer

In an increasingly complicated world it is easy to see why the complex solution is often seen as the only way to solve complex problems. The water industry, challenged with the need to inject innovation into its business operations, can often rely on the same thinking. But innovation doesn’t need to be flashy and expensive to succeed, in fact sometimes frugal innovation is more likely to work. The Ivanhoe Reservoir in Los Angeles where scorching sunlight was reacting with the chlorine added to the water and naturally occurring bromide to create harmful chemicals is a prime example. Instead of relying on a massive capital outlay or advanced chemistry they used an elegantly simple solution: adding millions of jet black plastic balls to the water, which covered the surface until a more permanent solution could be created.

That’s not to say frugal, or even simple, innovation is easy to achieve. It is hard to truly simplify a complex problem. How often are the phrases ‘machine learning’, ‘big data’ and ‘artificial intelligence’ bandied around at the moment? While all have their place, for a water company that needs to move forward and change working practices right now, the simplest solutions should be the first port of call.

When embarking on an overhaul of working practices and old systems, the idea that a wonderful new IT system could solve all the company’s problems is a seductive one. Yet the sheer monetary and time investment needed to get it right often consign these plans to the bottom of the pile before they have even started. How much better would it be to apply a continuous improvement (CI) approach that can allow the company to realise benefits within the organisation when that perfect IT solution just isn’t available or affordable.

Creating a Continuous Improvement Mindset

Focusing on the simple details of a process such as how the work really gets done today and mapping out the interrelated issues that need resolving sounds easy in principle but is often hard to achieve. This is because we often look for complex solutions such as IT for simple problems when we have not really understood the initial problem in enough detail. For example, a person who feels tired all the time might insist that their doctor check their iron levels while ignoring the fact that they are unambiguously sleep deprived.

Doing something now that makes an incremental difference soon is always better than waiting for the ideal solution to (possibly) come later. This does create a leadership challenge, as we naturally want a perfect solution and our bias is always to the complex. By opting for impenetrable / complex solutions, we sidestep the need to understand the problem. It is a means of turning away from a problem and labelling it as too confusing and a job for someone else to fix.

By focussing instead on understanding the fundamentals it is often possible to solve most of the problem. Software developers usually find that 90% of the code for a project takes about half the allocated time. The remaining 10% takes the other half. Writing — and any other sort of creative work — is much the same. When we succumb to complexity bias, we are focusing too hard on the tricky 10% and ignoring the more important 90%.

Setting simple tasks allows teams to use tools such as Root Cause Analysis (RCA) to understand the true cause(s) of a problem. From there the team can develop workable solutions themselves, the result it often practical strategies that fit with the culture of the workforce and the constraints they are working under.

Try It, See if it helps

The next stage is the trial. Only by trialling the solution is it possible to really know if it works. Ideas which the team think will work may in practice be only partially successful.

This is hard because despite ubiquitous phrases about “fail fast learn faster” people hate failure because of how it makes them feel. Facilitating a team to take a cold hard (objective) look at why it didn’t work over and over again takes a lot of leadership effort. The easy route is to write it off or assume the first go was good enough. Instead, make time to focus on understanding what did and didn’t work, and plan for it to take at least 3 trials before the way forward is clear.

The key here is that the actual team members are finding out what works for them. They are invested in the final solution as they have designed it themselves and they bring their technical and practical knowledge with them when suggesting a new way of working. They have really thought about ways to make their own jobs easier and found a way to do that.

How this Works in Practice

A water company was looking to assess risk at a site level so they could manage that risk more effectively. This was a complex undertaking with multiple sites, unique asset configuration, unique site design and poor data quality. The level of complexity was huge before even considering the local environment such as proximity to water courses, bathing water etc. It was just too complex, in fact it wasn’t pragmatically possible.

The business was looking at the problem from the wrong perspective. Performing this task centrally using systems data the problem looked too complex. If you look at the problem from a local site level the problem looks much simpler.

Asking each site to perform a standard assessment of local risk makes the data collection simpler. Proving a simple process with pre-defined assessment criteria and using local site knowledge it’s possible to gather the same data quickly at low cost.

Not only can you gather all the information you need, but you gather much ‘richer’ data as local teams understand their risk more than anyone else. Aggregating this data can be done through simple spreadsheets that can be centralised.

A complex problem has been fixed using a simple (and very cheap) new process by thinking deeply about how to look at the problem from a different perspective. The team then started trialling practical improvements to refine the system and make it work even better.

Innovation is not always about embracing the complex. By looking at a problem with fresh eyes and implementing continuous improvements, the simple ideas can facilitate big changes and drive effective results.

This article first appeared in Institute of Water on 31st August, 2018. Photo Credit: A 2008 photo of the balls rolling into the reservoir - <cite>Irfan Khan/Getty Images</cite>

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