Our New COVID-19 World and Operational Excellence

SInce our world got turned upside down with the impacts of COVID-19, I’ve been fascinated by how this has unfolded, and how it highlights some of the key drivers that affect the achievement of operational excellence.

DATA

Data Driven Decision Making:

The mantra of “Flattening the Curve” is a excellent case study of data driven management. With just a relatively few key data points - Number of Tests, Number of New Cases (positives) Hospitalizations, Deaths, and New Case based projections of supplies needed, epidemiological statisticians created a variety of models to project “worst case” and “best case” models for countries and states, subsequently updating those models with actual data.

Initially, these models drove huge estimates for personal protective equipment (PPE), such as shields and masks, as well as ventilators, a specific COVID-19 driven need. These estimates, in turn, drove huge purchase requests from a variety of uncoordinated local, state and national organizations, sometime duplicating needs and in worst case, hoarding of PPE. In the good news category, once actual data was added, and the “flattening the curve” efforts were more or less effective, the supply demand came way down, and improving coordination between the various supply chain organizations changed the PPE needs from being a huge deficient to a manageable supply if coordinated for “hot spot” needs. Even New York City, the country’s largest “hot spot” ended up with a lightly filled Federal hospitals (Javit’s convention center and the hospital ship Comfort)

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Lack of Complete Data

One obvious flaw with the models is that the extent of testing between countries, states and regions has been highly variable, so any conclusion made from them is subject to error if testing is under or over average. As the relationship between testing is particular area to hospitalizations became more clear, each region had a more accurate model of what new positive results will result in. Latest rule of thumb figures I’ve heard is that about 20% of people testing positive will need to be hospitalized and 2% of those will die. Because underlying risk factors and age are more likely to die, again the data can become skewed if the population deviates much from the average. Italy, for example, has the oldest population in Europe; the State of Vermont as well as Washington’s death statistics are higher than average on per capita view because the deaths are more concentrated from elder care facility which densely house high risk individuals. Bottom line, while the data is useful in some ways, data is not always consistent or complete enough to draw a solid line to a conclusion, but you can use it see trends and eventually establish relationships.

Data Driven Decision Making makes choices easier, but the accuracy of the data (as well as the context it exists in) needs to be well understood.

SUPPLY CHAIN

Coordination

The lack of coordination between local, regional, state and federal organizations led to inflated figures for demand, hoarding of supplies, lack of supplies in “hot spot” areas and now, with “flattening of the curve”, oversupply in the some areas. As demand was better aggregated by regional and state organizations, and as FEMA has learned to play their role in supplying “hot spot” areas with supplies they have been able to obtain, the coordination improved but was could not be called an efficient, coordinated effort.

Supply Chain Frameworks

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While the list of supplies needed for COVID-19 response is not that large, the lack of a global or national supply chain framework has created a situation where local, regional, state, national and global entities have been working against instead of with each other to solve shortages. Public Health officials have conducted simulations of pandemics over the years. A recent one, Event 201 in 2019, that sounded eerily like our current situation. Their recommendations included:

  1. Governments, international organizations, and businesses should plan now for how now for how essential corporate capabilities will be utilized during a large-scale pandemic.

  2. Industry, national governments, and international organizations should work together to enhance internationally held stockpiles of medical countermeasures (MCMs) to enable rapid and equitable distribution during a severe pandemic.

  3. Governments should provide more resources and support for the development and surge manufacturing of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics that will be needed during a severe pandemic.

Because there was no framework in place as the COVID-19 pandemic unfolded, all three of these recommendations are in the process of being developed as a real time response. If a framework had been in place prior to the pandemic (even part of it), we would have been able to be more responsive to the shortages sooner. All complex supply chains need to be developed with some thought to how the system works together, including understanding and responding to the risks to the supply chain.

PIVOTING

With many manufacturers and organizations looking to help in some what to solve COVID-19 issues, it’s been truly amazing to see how even somewhat stodgy organizations revamped their production floors or even their main functions into doing some sort of COVID-19 response. What will be even more challenging will be adjusting to the ways that the ongoing presence of a highly contagious and potentially deadly virus has changed the our way of life and how business is conducted. Impact varies dramatically from little to none to dramatic, possibly business ending. On top of that, because the “mitigation” phase came with stay-at-home restrictions and closures for non-essential businesses, many businesses are reopening in a financially stressed or depleted state. Successful businesses will be the ones who can see and understand how the changes are affecting their businesses and can pivot quickly to a new or updated model that will work in the new COVID-19 affected world. To whatever extent possible, “Make lemonade out of lemons”.

PRIORITIZATION

Similar to the lack of a Supply Chain Framework, the lack of a predetermined way of prioritizing requests caused conflicts as the rules of who go what and how much were not clear or known. Working on priorities and assigning value to specific types of demand helps ration short supplies and ensure that those most in need get needed supplies.

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Balancing Public Health against the Economy
A key issue that came under the spotlight as we headed to reopening was how to balance Public Health against the Economy. Shutting non-essential businesses, as we know, dramatically affected our once healthy economy, and some sectors of business, such as restaurants and close contact businesses will be severely limited in their operations until we get a vaccine or achieve “herd immunity”. But the question is how do you balance the threat of increasing deaths against the cost of lost jobs? No one has a good answer, and various states have tipped the balance one way or the other (subject to change…) It’s probably one of the toughest prioritization decisions anyone could make. Prioritization exercises should promote activities that will provide the best value, but circumstances change, so they need to revisited frequently.

USE OF TECHNOLOGY
Where would we be without technology.. the internet and Zoom? It’s been fantastic to see how these tools have been leveraged so quickly to conduct school, operate businesses and in many ways, carry on with a new normal. Many can’t escape the distractions of home especially with kids not at school, but others have found that working remotely makes them more focused and productive, or just plain happier.

Many small retail businesses already had websites, but now they are essential for curbside pickup and no-contact business transactions. So anyone with web related technology or skills has been in demand, and in many cases, progress that would normally have taken months or years has happened in days or weeks!

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With the increased reliance on technology to carry on business, its clear that having a good internet connection is essential. We should all be thankful that the internet providers developed a network that has been able to support the sudden new demands, and should continue to support efforts to ensure that everyone who wants it has access to reliable broadband internet . It’s clear now more than ever, that the internet and all the technology and applications that can be accessed over it can make us more efficient and productive.

ROLES AND RESPONSIBILITIES
Just like in a business, lack of clarity about who does what as well as who needs to consult with others has led to many conflicts.

President (Feds) vs Governors (State) vs Local (County/City)
Some of the decisions we’ve lived through - Who set the “Stay at Home” Order”, Who sets the opening guidance, How do you set what the guidance as well as guidance are” and Who enforces all this stuff? Each step of the way, there were clashes over what the President, Governors or Mayors could implement - and if there were conflicts, who ruled?

How everyone works together
While all the efforts of the mask makers, volunteer efforts and manufacturing transformation were all wonderful in the way they had everyone pitch in, and in most cases, make a meaningful contribution, all these efforts, being so disconnected without large scale planning led to many efforts being less successful in doing the most important activities in that moment in time.

If any of the volunteer efforts could have joined forces, and actually discussed who did what, it clearly would have boosted the output of their efforts. Any discussion of Roles & Responsibilities reduces conflicts and improves coordination for better results.

LEADERSHIP
Whether in business or government, there are countless examples are where a strong leader has helped their team or citizens navigate challenging times and periods of great change. The challenge of COVID-19 was one that no government leader was prepared for, and if you watch any press conferences, you can see which leaders are rising to the challenge and those who are not. Good leaders are transparent, deliver both the good and bad news, make tough decisions (and explain how they arrived at those decisions), inspire, and add a little humor from time to time.

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CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
The dramatic shift in life (and business) was unsettling for all, and in many cases has put once solid businesses into a very troubled spot. So that base level of stress has settled into almost every pieces of our lives. Luckily we humans adapt even to challenges as bad as this one, but not everyone interacts so well with others when they are stressed.

Triggering
The White House press conferences have displayed many (way too many) instances where both reporters as well as the president were triggered in some way, and instead of backing off, they dug in deeper. This behavior did not shed any insight on the question at hand or solve any problems, it just left me (at least) to shake my head and see what a complete waste of time that interaction was.

Absence of non-violent communication
Even with triggering communications, relationships can be salvaged or even improved if the two parties can have an open and honest conversation about how and why they became triggered, so they could learn how to work together more effectively in the future. This rarely happens in today’s political environment.

It’s quite a sad that we see so much conflict during a time we say “We’re all in this together”. Those that are triggers and avoid mending conflicts are not solving the problems that need to solved. Collaboration can’t occur when individuals are triggered and when there is no attempt at non-violent communication (listening to and trying to understand each other’s needs and perspectives).

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In Summary….

We are all in this together; we all have many challenges to overcome. Hopefully the wonders of modern science will help us get to the end of this sooner than later.

In the meantime, hopefully this post has spurred to you to think about how the issues raised from this situation relate to your own world.

Last but not least, let’s hope we figure out how to prevent this from ever happening again!