Thread:

We've all read many angry, conspiracy theory tweets & FB posts pushing the "UK govt tried the herd immunity approach & that's why people are dying" line. I just read one by @UniKent academic @HeejungChung so i thought i'd try & help by explaining.

1. Most people have never been involved in formal planning or strategy activity. That's fine. If it's not part of your job then why would you? Most people have also never serviced a car engine. And that's fine too. Neither is a cause of shame.

But:

2. If you have never serviced an engine you will not know the sequence of steps and tasks that are essential to doing the job correctly. For instance, do you know about the importance of cam timing relative to crankshaft timing?
No, thought not. But you pay someone who does.

3. If you don't have a role in formal planning/strategy activity then you almost certainly don't know anything about "options appraisals". I can help you with that.

Before asking your boss/board/CEO/manager to part with cash/resources/time etc to deliver an exciting new project

or to meet an urgent new challenge (or crisis), you will prepare an options appraisal. This might be as part of something called a "business case", or a "PID" or a "business continuity or emergency plan".

This section - the clue is in the name - sets out "options".

The idea is that you say:
"we could do A or B or C or D.
Here are the costs/benefits/upsides/downsides of each of these.
Having compared them, i/we recommend you endorse option X & then give me/us the authority/cash/people/time to go and make it happen"

"Being all powerful and senior I/we accept that you may not approve our recommendation & may select an option I/we didn't recommend, but here is the output of our professional judgement, that you pay me/us for"

And of these options, some are no-brainer "don't do it" options and some are dead-certs and some are in-between cases.
And 1 option common to almost every options appraisal is called the "do nothing option".
This describes what the outcome would be if we literally do nothing.

Often the do-nothing option is of course the one screaming "don't do it". But we still include it. Because sometimes, just sometimes it is in fact the smart move.

But make no mistake: including a do-nothing option is nothing more or less than a sign of a professional at work.

Which means that if government advisors writing papers trying to work out what the f*ck to do about a global pandemic ripping through the global population included an option that explored what would happen if the government literally did nothing then they did that because.....

..that was the correct, professional, grown-up thing to do.

Just as i would always expect the mechanic servicing my engine (if i were able to resist the overwhelming temptation to do it myself that tends to strike me)to always check that nothing done would alter the cam timing.

It's about being serious about serious professional discipline and technique.

You don't have to know about cam timing.
You don't have to know about options appraisals.
But please, show the basic social skill of knowing what you do and what you do not know about.

And then...

..the world will make just a little bit more sense to you and you can spend a little less time being confused, angry and spreading inaccuracies.

The "do-nothing option" in this case is that you ignore this advice & instead continue being a socially destructive utter twat.

Ends