What should you listen to on the way to work? Here are INVI's recommendations
Human error, poor memory and budget overruns. The astute reader will quickly make the connection. At INVI, we see learning and follow-up as key principles in dealing with wild problems - that's why mistakes are just as interesting as success stories. We've put together a little po(d)pourri of what we listen to that focuses on when things go wrong.
INVI's Design Advisor, Kristine Fisker, recommends the podcast Cautionary Tales:
In Cautionary Tales, economist Tim Harford (Financial Times, BBC, author of "The Data Detective") tells real stories of human error and what we can learn from them.
It's interesting because Harford is an economist, but he speaks to me as a design engineer and social geek. He's great at exemplifying the psychological biases and group mechanisms that you have to be super aware of when people are trying to solve problems together.
You try to avoid these mechanisms by using design-based approaches and designing a solution to a problem, rather than just panicking and acting. To get started, I think you should start with one of the older episodes: 'How Britain invented, then ignored Blitzkrieg', about why it's so hard for large, well-established institutions to be innovative and entrepreneurial. Because while the British military invented blitzkrieg and the tank, Xerox invented the PC and Kodak the digital camera, they ignored their own innovation and left the breakthrough to the new kid on the block.
This is what we are working towards when we want to sharpen the state's ability to be innovative and entrepreneurial. Because how do we do that in one of the most well-established, old institutions when history shows how difficult it is? At INVI, we collect examples where we have succeeded, and the design field also has suggestions in practice and research on what is needed, but those recommendations will have to wait for another time.
Jannie Helene Grøne Kristoffersen, INVI's Chief Economist, recommends The Professor's Guide to Project Managing Big Change with Bent Flyvbjerg
I recommend the podcast because they talk about how you can do large projects and at the same time reduce the otherwise high risks. Among other things, by taking a modular approach to large projects, where parts are relatively generic and other parts are context-specific.
They also talk about why infrastructure investments are almost always more expensive than budgeted and the incentive structures involved, and also why time is a factor in itself.
If you want to dive deeper into Bent Flyvbjerg's thoughts, I recommend Bent Flyvbjerg's internationally recognized book on megaprojects: How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors Behind Every Successful Project.
Anders Degn, Communications Advisor at INVI, recommends the podcast episode The Ezra Klein Show: Tired? Distracted? Burned-Out? Listen to This.
Some mistakes we can learn from. Others are made due to stress and burnout. In this episode of the New York Times' The Ezra Klein Show, University of California psychology PhD and computer science professor Gloria Mark talks about how increased use of technology and lack of "nurturing" our attention can ultimately result in burn out.
To illustrate her point about how smartphones and computers have shaped our working lives, she points to studies from the 60s, 70s and 80s. Researchers followed people and tracked how much of their day they spent at their desk and found that the figure was around 30%. In 2019, Gloria Mark conducted a similar study and found that people spent almost 90% of their time at their desks in front of a screen.
You might think it's more efficient. But there is a cost to it, she says. And the cost is our well-being. The cost is stress. And prolonged use of technology without breaks can even lead to brain damage, she notes.
Life is the sum of the things that you pay attention to, so we need to think about how we use it.