Reflection – Learning Launch

Challenge

Yesterday, I had the opportunity to participate in an Innovation Challenge in a well-known Peruvian  consumer good company. The challenge my group and I had was to redesign the packaging of their food  products. For this challenge, we were assigned two customers, one of them was a mother, who is actually  working from home but at the same time taking care of her young son. On the other hand, there was a  painter that lived only with his father. They were the ones that will help us with the validation of our  prototype.

Selection

I selected Learning Launch as the tool to be used. Learning Launch, is a tool which main driver is to test  fast, fail fast and spend less. The main reason for selecting this tool was because we had little to no  resources to make the solution, and we had to deliver value in a continuously way. Another reason, was  that we had the customers that could help us to co create the solution by giving us the most valuable  insight they could by testing.

Application

For the application, we first had to build our prototype based on the information we had from  Visualization, Storytelling and Mind Mapping tools. Our prototype was a new Ziploc style bag with the  shape of the food it will contain; for example, for cereal, it will have the shape of a box of cereal, despite  it was not a box. Also, we had to consider that the material needed to be ecofriendly; since our users  valued a lot that characteristic; that is why we decided to made the bag using compostable materials.

In order to apply the tool, we made up an interview guide for the testing phase. I was in charge of this  phase, so I began to introduce the team, then making the user to think about the specific context in which  he or she is in the supermarket in front of the cereal stand. And then, he sees our prototype. We ask the  first question, “what comes to your mind when you see this”. After his opinion, we described our solution  and ask again, what does he likes or dislikes; as well as; which things he or she will change.

While I was asking, another friend was taking notes about the meaningful insights the users gave us.

Insight

The insight I gained was really valuable, we ended up redesigning the package in three loops, while co- creating, we ended giving our users a very useful and valuable packaging. For example, one of them  mentioned that because the material was compostable, he will not buy a cereal in that package because  of the sanitary distrust. That is why he suggested to print the logo of the certification from a well-known  regulator in order to confirm that the packaging is suitable for food. The woman, for example, has animals  so she asked if it would be possible that the packaging could be a source of food for her animals.

This stage of testing, change my point of view of how I used to handle the development of a new product.  Maybe, my product would have been the best for me, but it would not be for the end user. I learned a lot  from the users as well as only use very cheap materials.

Approach

Next time, I would change the way of interaction; by this I mean no to make a questionary for the interview  and instead, be more like a spontaneous conversation. This in order to make the user be really honest  with us by making him or her concentrating more in the experience and less in the questions.

I learned this, because at the beginning we felt that one of them was afraid of telling us that he did not  liked most of the solution we presented to him. By doing what I described above, I think that he or she  would be freer to share his or her thoughts and co create together fluently.

Another thing that I would change, is the prototype, maybe we could use for loop 1 and 2 a picture and  in loop 3 and the final we could use materials. This in order to do it faster but also cheaper.

