Envision a world where the most exposed and vulnerable people living in cities—the elderly, children, outdoor workers, pregnant women, unhoused individuals, and those with chronic conditions—can be safe and comfortable despite the rise of scorching temperatures. During HeatSprint, 50+ urban leaders and heat experts explored challenges and solutions for creating a safer, more resilient world against extreme heat.
An Urgent Need for Heat Resilience
According to The Group on Earth Observations (GEO), about 500,000 deaths per year (Zhao, Qi et al., 2021) can be attributed to extreme heat. It causes serious physical and mental health issues and disrupts services like energy and transportation. And extreme heat is becoming more intense every year. Heat stress could cost the global economy $2.4 trillion by 2030, with poorer communities and countries suffering the most. The effects of heat stress are felt most strongly in cities. An Urban Heat Island effect can increase temperatures by up to 20 degrees Fahrenheit.
Better data and planning tools can save lives. Urban communities lack appropriate risk knowledge for assessing and taking action in managing heat risks. GEO is equipping cities with the tools and information they need for comprehensive heat risk management. Harnessing advanced technology, cloud computing, and AI, GEO’s Global Heat Resilience Service will guide cities in identifying vulnerable populations and planning effective responses.
Figure 1: Workshop program and participants interacting during the workshop.
Collaborative Innovation
GEO believes that a better understanding of heat risk will enable cities to manage chronic stresses and acute shocks from extreme heat. The Global Heat Resilience Service will only accomplish these goals if it is useful to local governments, e.g., Heat Officers, city planners, community organizations, and community health workers. It must help these local officials secure budgets for heat action and make informed decisions on where and how to spend that budget in their city.
To improve the likelihood of success, GEO engaged users to co-envision and co-design what an operational, global-scale heat resilience service could be like (e.g. tool offering tailored heat risk data resources, heat knowledge hub, heat resilience standardization/maturity model). GEO convened 50+ people from around the world representing different organizations, sectors, and roles to rapidly generate concepts for improving heat resilience in cities. On February 28-29, 2024, the Global Heat Resilience Service HeatSprint took place at the WMO Headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland. We were invited to support the Group on Earth Observations (GEO) in planning and facilitation. It was great to see such a mix of people, including city leaders from Rio de Janeiro, Buenos Aires, Dhaka, Chennai, and Monterrey, who shared about the challenges and inspiring actions taking place in their communities.
Figure 2: Active participation and ideas were generated throughout the workshop.
Crafting a Design Sprint Approach for HeatSprint
A Design Sprint allows teams to collaborate over a short period of time to build and test solutions before investing too much time and resources in building them out fully. During HeatSprint, this promoted more hands-on ‘doing’ in addition to discussion. We tailored a Design Sprint for GEO that drew from best practices (particularly The Sprint Book by Jake Knapp), our own experience running design exercises, and the unique constraints of HeatSprint:
1. Condensed timeline.
A typical design sprint lasts a week or more. The two-day schedule forced us to focus on key activities around mapping user workflows, identifying pain points, and finding solutions. We did more work upfront. A clear problem statement was already defined going in, not typical of a traditional design sprint. An optional half-day was also added for a subset of people to prototype one comprehensive concept to share with city representatives.
2. Accommodating lots of people.
A typical sprint might involve less than 7 people, but we had over 50 people, with additional participants joining virtually. We planned for several large-group sessions each day but focused on smaller breakout groups for the hands-on activities. This required more logistics to move people around and multiple facilitators, but the benefit was that each group could narrow in on a different user perspective of the same problem.
3. Multiple moments of decision-making.
We incorporated moments of decision-making throughout both days through voting, discussions, and synthesis. With so many people there were naturally many directions on both pain points and solutions. It was important to give space for that divergent thinking, but GEO and the facilitators had to play a key role throughout to converge conversations and ideas to move things along quickly. At the end of day 1, the organizers regrouped to lay out the themes generated across breakout groups and wrote out a new solution prompt for day 2 so that we could focus solely on solutions.
Figure 3: Screenshots of the solution prototype created on the optional third day of the workshop.
Outcomes
The solution prompt responded to the practical reality that while heat risk knowledge is important, it needs to be linked with action. The solution prompt was:
How might we help local officials secure budget for heat action and make informed decisions on where and how to spend that budget in their city?
This resulted in four co-designed solutions presented by each group at the end of the day, which were further explored as one final prototype during the optional half-day session, during which city representatives were able to provide feedback immediately.
A Design Sprint approach was an effective way to turn discussions into actions within a short period of time. Solutions did not need to be perfect right away. By putting things on paper and testing them out sooner rather than later, we would have a better chance of identifying what is working or not and engaging more people in the process as opposed to working in silos. The participation of diverse people also increased the likelihood that the solutions were grounded in real needs and context.
It was a pleasure to be part of this important effort as GEO further develops and iterates on the solution with pilot cities and communities throughout 2024.
Get Involved
If you are interested in contributing to or using the Global Heat Resilience Service, contact GEO. For advice and assistance running design sprints and other co-design exercises for earth data products, Development Seed is experienced in running design exercises for organizations (in-person or virtual) and would love to partner with you on your next challenge. Reach out to martina [at] developmentseed.org to chat.
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