21. 21
IN SUM…
01
FIND FELLOW
POTENTIALISTS
START SMALL,
FIND WHAT
WORKS
HAVE A
SCRIPT…BUT
DON’T BE AFRAID
TO TEAR IT UP
BE READY FOR
OPPORTUNITIES
ASK
QUESTIONS
DON’T IGNORE
SEEMINGLY
SIMPLE
SOLUTIONS
BUILD A MAP,
NOT AN MVP
LEVERAGE
SCALE, DON’T
BE CONFINED
BY IT
02 03 04
05 06 07 08
@PhilipRyan
@IpsosUS
Introduce myself – focus on growth strategy at Ipsos, a large research firm.
Focus mostly on innovation and the future
What I want to share is
Background into our relationship with Cigna and the types of things we’ve done. One in particular
More importantly, a few lessons we’ve learned, codified and that we think could be useful
So…a bit of background on us and Cigna.
My larger company, Ipsos, already does a lot of market research with Cigna.
I met James about 3 years ago and we did a few projects together…the nature evolved over time
Took a new role a year and a half ago with our global team – really trying to expand the skills set in the US to a global group at Cigna.
Had a project to kick off the new group. Let’s dive into that…but before I do
I want to jump ahead to tip number 3, which is all about being flexible.
I was actually meant to co-present this today with James from Cigna
Unfortunately, James couldn’t be here today but…if there’s one thing we constantly preach, it’s the need for agility and flexibility. Ultimately, the show must go in.
But he did record a message
On to the case I want to talk about. Here are a few questions – raise your hand if…
Been to a doctor. It was easy? You know how much it costs before going? Of even after?
So…the business problem
On one hand you have patients, people like you and me, who want to go to a doctor, or optician or pharmacis
On the other, you have the providers themselves
Describe the approach (community + sprint -> wireframes)
End by talking about wireframes + business plans + back to community
We at Cigna went back and built it, piloting in Germany and Switzerland. It’s basically Uber for healthcare.
Quickly flip through slides on solution
Quickly flip through slides on solution
Quickly flip through slides on solution
Quickly flip through slides on solution
Quickly flip through slides on solution
Quickly flip through slides on solution
Quickly flip through slides on solution
Quickly flip through slides on solution
Quickly flip through slides on solution
Finish on…This is an example of some work we did. We’ve done a few projects together
What’s exciting about this is that it’s actually pretty simple and it provides a template for something that would be great to have here in the US. More on that in a minute.
You know, when James and I were putting this together, he wanted to emphasize that they work with other agencies. So, in the spirit of what we agreed, I want to stress that James also works with other agencies!
More importantly, when we decided to do this together, we thought we’d look at what makes innovation work and partnerships successful. Be they working internally or across multiple partners.
These are the key lessons that we’ve come up with
We often tell our clients to start with a design target…but often forget to have one ourselves.
Tell story of developing potentialists as ideal clients and employees. It’s important to work with people who are also looking to have an impact and who see potential.
When talking to James about this, for him, it’s also important to find the same people internally.
Even better is when we convert people to our view over time (we actually saw this happen live in Antwerp when we were there doing our sprint)
A big idea of ‘trusting the process’ the first time, helps people change their perspective over time
So really this is about finding fellow potentialists o
Often people have these big visions and then get frustrated when it doesn’t pan out.
Sometimes you’re better off finding a project or partner that you do something ‘safe’ with first. It’s not just the work…but it’s the relationship you build
It’s really no different to dating someone. Who proposes on the first date? start with coffee
Innovation by it’s nature is really, really messy. Especially if you’re doing it right. However, with all that uncertainty, there are some things you can do to control the controllable –
putting together project plans,
using tried and true methods from design thinking, jobs to be done, etc.
simple things like standard status updates
However, it’s important to know when to tear up the script and try something new.
For example, on this work, when we put the wireframes back into those online communities, we had trouble getting providers to engage. So we sent people to their offices to take them through the wireframes in person.
As they say planning is essential..plans are useless
Similar to today, I suddenly find myself up here on my own!
James likens it to cooking. When you start, you have to follow simple recipes, templates, etc. and…over time…you find what works, what you like, etc. and you start mixing and matching.
When we were prepping for the first workshop we did with James, he kept talking about having his go-back ready.
I was like ‘ha ha’ whatever. Funny line. But then I show up at the workshop with all our supplies, and James whips out this bag full of silly putty, post-its, sharpies, mr. sketch, the full thing.
And it’s really an analogy for being ready to jump in and execute a project quickly. T-Care as an example that suddenly turned into a new job. It’s the mental place you need to be in.
With that, one of the things we found is that people often lead with an answer, disguised as a question. When it came to T-Care, and any project really, we spent about as much time defining the real question, as we did developing the solution. This is super basic but worth reiterating. Worth mentioning Warren Berger and A More Beautiful Question
On T-cAre it started with ‘how to develop a digital payment system’ to ‘what are the pain points for doctors and patients?’
And the answer was actually pretty simple. As you saw. If you strip away the organizational complexity, the answer is quite simple.
One specific example here was the scheduling of appointments. The complex solution was to build a new thing. The simple one was to tie into a software provider already doing it.
People often talk about minimum viable products…this is rooted in what the company can do rather than what the consumer wants. Better to have a min awesome product.
that’s what we built with Tcare. Look at the original Alexa. It was great. And it keeps getting better.
This is one that I can’t overly emphasize and one I that comes up time and time again.
We are a large company…so it should give us advantages…but we end up getting stymied by the ‘machine’
When it came to Tcare, we knew that solving this in the US would be untenable as it’s so utterly complex. However, international markets might work.
That’s why this was led over there.
. We leveraged ability to do communities and people on the ground in other markets to get the insights we needed and then to share the wireframes. (mention Switzerland and doc offices again)
These are our tips. We’ve found them useful. Hopefully you do too.
Any questions?
