Reflection – Learning Launch    Challenge    Our design team received a consulting project from a client, a Federal government body that  performs assessment and accreditations of higher education institutions. The client has  empanelled partners to assist them in this process.   The project was scheduled for 30 days. Our team, comprising of 4 members, were tasked to  improve the efficiency of the assessment process by developing a prototype of an alerting  system that would help in real time status tracking of applications to track the status of their  partners work and also reduce time delays in the overall process of accreditation. My design  team had prior experience in working on process improvement projects, henceforth, the task  of gathering information/requirements from the client became quicker.     Selection    Our design team was known for its agility and came up with a quick design prototype of the  tracking system using software tools. Now it was time for the team to use learning launch tool  to test the developed prototype of the alerting system. This learning launch tool will help in  validating the assumptions made during the development of the prototype.     Learning launch tool assists in figuring out what customer needs are in a quick way. Most  learning launches involves reaching out to the customers to gather their feedback.    My team was well aware of the use of learning launch tool which is an experiment meant to  quickly test an idea and prototype them. The Alerting System prototype had to be tested with  the clients sooner to get their feedback.     https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e2D2mFcZzeW  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnVUhYZvCFr      Application    During the learning launch phase 1, our design team followed agile methods to develop a  prototype of the alerting system. Agile methods are popular for small incremental work. The  agile method that my team followed included phases such as scoping, diagrams for initial  sprint, development and testing.   During the learning launch phase 2, the developed alerting system was released in  production. A set of Information and Communication Technology (ICT) experts on the client  team were asked to use the newly deployed alerting system to track their applications in real  time. Our design team sent out a questionnaire to this ICT team and tasked the experts to fill  it up. ICT team was given a day to fill out their feedback on the alerting system. This  questionnaire focused on the usage of the alerting system and any other features that needed  to be incorporated. The project was completed within 28 days as per the scope set in the  initial discussion.

Insight    Using learning launch tool really helped our design team as the assumptions that were made  during the requirements gathering phase were validated. There were couple of changes that  were suggested by the ICT team from the Client side and those were documented in their  feedback. The challenge that team faced was that, if the changes needed to be incorporated  in the newly developed alerting system, then the scope of the project would expand and also  the time line would get extended. So, the design team decided to hold a project extension  meeting with the client and presented a Phase 2 project proposal. This proposal is still under  approval status.     Approach    Learning Launch proved to be a very effective tool in order to know whether the assumptions  of our design team were accurate. At times, the design team had missed few requirements  that were identified and incorporated as the team followed agile iterative process. Combining  the usage of learning launch tool and agile methodology made our team successful in keeping  up with the project timelines that eventually made our client happy.

