Reflection—Learning Launch

Challenge

The release of GDPR compliance guidelines acted upon with the usual corporate lethargy seemed to  be the perfect recipe for disaster for a large Media and Entertainment firm that had noticeable web  presence through it’s proprietary web properties within the European Union region. With a  consolidated list of web properties across the entire group in front of us,the severity of the time  constraint to ensure that all web properties become GDPR compliant and test all of them for stability  was soon realised.Since the consolidated list also held vendor details,we noticed two major trends,1)  Different vendors serviced archaic web properties that belonged to a single vertical,partly explaining  the low footfall on these web properties and 2) Vendors continued to service websites that were no  longer required,which lead to wasteful expenditure of money and effort that could potentially be  saved.

Approach & Selection

With the opportunity to kill two birds with a single stone,the first step was to formalize a problem  statement to focus our efforts upon.At the outset,we required any potential solution to ensure that  all web properties under the scope of the solution were GDPR-compliant and also be able to house  all the web properties under a single, unified structure in order to reduce operational expense to a  large extent.After having cycled through many potential solutions that met our design criteria,it was  critical that the solution we chose to implement met or enhanced the needs of the end-users as well  which is why as part of the second step,a carefully curated user base was interviewed on the issues  they faced while interacting with the current solution which gave us additional design criteria on the  customer and execution front as well as confirmed the strength of the idea-fit dynamic

Given the time constraint,it would be unwise to arbitrarily select a web property to undergo  renovation and be tested for it’s stability under the new solution.Instead,it made sense to place  small bets by testing websites that were not as popular and were not as taxing from a technical  specification standpoint.This step would give us a chance to test our assumptions upon which the  solution was built and help us get buy-in from the sceptical senior executives overlooking this  particular transformation

Application

Learning launch is a tool that is used to quickly test an idea and it’s real-world potential as well.

To kick off the learning launch process,I start by collecting existing material relevant to understand  the environment within which the problem resides.The material collected varies largely based on the  context of the problem but shouldn’t be limited only to the focal area of the problem.For instance,a  technical rejig required to make your web properties compliant gives you the chance to branch out  and collect material that helps you understand the context in which your solution is used in addition  to the technical specifications of the web properties.The second step involves people representing  different verticals within the group coming together to form a multi-functional team in order to  understand the current scenario and draw inferences from it to reach our goal.On a whiteboard,I will  draw 3 columns that represent:1)Current State 2)Gaps 3)Future State.After a thorough,data-driven  discussion with the varied stakeholders in the group,we will agree upon the current and the future  state keeping in mind the end users’ needs,our capabilities as an organization and a rough estimate  of the financial feasibility of carrying out a solution on those lines. Filling the current and the future  state columns gives you a sense of direction with the problem at hand and filling the gaps now

would be a much easier proposition knowing the criteria that your solution needs to fulfil.  Additionally,it gave us a chance to completely remodel our maintenance expense structure by  streamlining contract extensions for relevant web properties to select vendor partners.

At this point,I will now create two documents that I feel are extremely critical to the success of the  project:

1)A table that records all the key assumptions upon which the gaps have been conceptualized, the  people responsible for verifying said assumptions and the method in which they will do so, it could  be running experiments or consulting further people for their opinion, also the amount of time the  verification will take and the cost that will have to borne

2)A simple flow diagram using basic shapes that gives all the stakeholders involved a visual idea of  the path that will be followed for the implementation of the solution

In the event that our assumption(s) are disproven,we huddle back to decide how central were these  assumptions to the idea itself to begin with and if we could go on even after seeing some of our  assumptions disproven. If we decide to proceed as-is,we will continue with the development of a  prototype which will be measured for it’s stability in a real-world scenario.However,if we decide that  the disproven assumptions were critical to the idea,we will shelve the current idea and go back to  the whiteboard to figure a new way to cover our gaps.The prototype will be shared with the  concerned stakeholders for their feedback and a decision to whether scale the solution or not will be  taken based on the performance of the prototype.Also,any feasible piece of feedback provided will  be incorporated into the solution itself.

Insight

The urgency of the situation compelled us to bring all the data pieces in a single location so that an  underlying trend could be identified from among them which would be beneficial in helping us get a  better view of the bigger picture which we later realised is the first step to solving any problem. An  additional bonus for us from this exercise was the identification of a larger issue which we would  have had to deal with going down the road at a point when costs and effort would most likely have  be escalated.

With a clear view on how our solution should look like,it was now much easier for us to objectively  design test our key assumptions on solutions brought to us by several vendors as part of the vetting  process for a project. This ensured that the most suitable solution according to our design criteria  would be picked and as a result would have made the lives of our end users a lot easier.

