Reflection – Learning Launch

• Challenge

I am a member of a pharma company and I am from Sales.     Our challenge is to launch a new product for liver nutrition in cirrhotic patients and increase sales in the nutraceuticals  range and to spend marketing budgets on the right campaigns.     The project scope includes the sales department; around 6 members,  medico-legal department marketing department with whom we work closely.  The project should not exceed 60 business days.

• Selection

Our team has already gone through several design thinking activities/tools, so we are ready to try the  learning launch tool. Broadly speaking, the learning launch is an experiment meant to quickly test an  idea and prototype.     1. Unmet Nutritional requirements of cirrhotic patients:-   to be evaluated with a set of doctors by setting scientific meetings on the     i) Disease condition  ii) Severity of the diseases  iii) Incremental Cost on the total therapy      2. Product Packaging and taste    i) Bottle or sachets  ii) flavours to be included

3. Price     i)what price is the patient ready to purchase     This tested our assumption that the structure and execution were the main causes of our workflow challenge.

• Application

Our team went through a three-day training on the Nutritional requirements of cirrhotic patients.    Next, we went through four Scientific sessions with the doctors to understand their expectations on Nutritional  requirements in cirrhotic patients, for our tasks and processes in a more agile way.     These two sessions occurred within a two-week timeframe.     For our second learning launch, we focused on gaining clarity about our tasks and priorities.   This tested our assumption that our prioritization of tasks was the main cause of our workflow challenge.     Our team also completed a 25 doctors survey.     Additionally, our sales team has also done a taste survey and price survey with a set of 100 patients.     The surveys included questions about our new, taste, packaging, and price expectation, and were conducted within a  one-week timeframe.

• Insight

By applying the learning launch tool, our team identified our assumptions and designed launches to test these  assumptions.

Additionally, we thought through anticipated results, expecting to find that a more agile approach would improve our  workflow and that both our team and the key stakeholders would be fairly open to the new prioritization of tasks and  processes.   Our actual results were slightly different from what we anticipated. Moving forward, our team will review this insight and  incorporate it into future launch designs. The ongoing incorporation of insight is particularly important at this stage, as  launches come before a full rollout in the design thinking timeline.

• Approach

Given that our team has already gone through several design thinking activities/tools and are at this stage in the timeline,  the learning launch is the appropriate tool.   As previously mentioned, our team needs to review the insight gained from our first two launches and incorporate this  insight into future launch designs.   Future launch designs should reflect insight gained, progress made, and come closer to a compelling solution ready for a  full rollout.

