Week 3: The Importance of Simplicity

An overarching theme of this week’s readings pertaining to solutions and enablers to deliver basic human needs seems to be the effectiveness of simplicity. From the unconventional creation of a television series inspired by the existing knowledge and passion of the producer to the design of various water purifiers catered specifically to the areas in which they would be used, there is proof that complexity is not a prerequisite for innovation. With a desire to be innovative, outsiders striving to come up with brilliant solutions frequently neglect to identify the true root of the problem they want to solve, resulting in the tendency for the oversight of simple, effective answers.

I believe the idea of simplicity applies to the innovation of both physical products as well as social change, which also reflects on the idea of positive deviance discussed in the “Design Thinking for Social Innovation” reading from last week. By looking within a community to see what is and is not working, the use of existing knowledge and solutions is an advantage. A group of faculty and staff members at CMU did a positive deviance study last year in an attempt to combat student stress culture. Dr. Jon Lloyd, who was the Director of the Surgical Residency Program at the University of Pittsburgh Trauma Center, had successfully used positive deviance to fight the MRSA outbreak in 2004. He proposed the idea that similar positive deviance strategies could be applied as an initiative at CMU. By identifying existing students and practices within the university as “positive deviants”, they hoped to analyze common that would help them create a model for change instead of implementing hypothetical solutions that were likely to face resistance and/or ultimately fail. Designing solutions meant to impact a community based on existing solutions that are already working proved to be a much simpler solution than risking the oversight and improper modeling of the system that occurs from an outside perspective.

I was particularly intrigued by the Child Vision project, particularly the challenge to product the product for approximately $3. In this case, not only is simplicity beneficial, it is also a necessity to make availability of the product feasible for consumers in developing countries. Numerous considerations had to be made in regards to practicality, from developing the Adspecs to be adjustable without an optician to furthering the reach by training school teachers on the use of the product so they can assist their students. If the Child Vision product had completely addressed the problem from the outside instead of using existing stakeholders like the teachers to their advantage, the reach might not have been as far. While it can be effective to approach innovation from the outside, the analysis of the existing practices definitely have the most impact in identifying the ease of simplicity. Stemming from that insight, how does identifying positive deviance with simplicity change the strategy of approaching and actually developing innovations?