Learning Launch: a way to the natural solution. 1

Learning Launch: a way to the  natural solution.

Challenge

Despite my engineering background, through the past years I have been  managing our family's business, a large size camping and village resort in  Tuscany. As a small company, owning flexible organisation and adaptable  resources for internally producing products and objects, our goal has always  been to reconnect people (our customers, stakeholders) with the natural  environment we oughted to provide them during their stay with us. Therefore  innovation travelled through the question "how might we provide a more  natural touristic village experience, yet retaining a perception of comfort?".

Selection

The prototype gained its initial shape based on feedbacks provided by our  customer base (via questionnaires): a small wooden structure with cotton tent,  a small retreat for couples in the woods.

Natural materials and a smart yet simple design of the interiors.

The question had been articulated to a certain degree of refinement but we  soon realised we were missing insights and, therefore, parts of the problem to  address. We realised we had very small experience on the "Glamping" (stands

for glamour, nature oriented) business and decided to proceed based on

insights, not guesses that could build up presumptuous hypothesis. Having a  dynamic organisation, where different hierarchical roles merged regularly

together to discuss about everyones ideas, we soon realised that the only way  to gain profound understanding of the challenge was to let the stakeholders

speak for themselves. The option was here to set up a learning launch,

allowing people to live the prototype, created in a single unit. A process that  would have helped us gain more insights and prove our idea quickly and

cheaply.

Learning Launch: a way to the natural solution. 2

Application

Taking advantage of the aforementioned production flexibility we could

deploy, an "in season" (that substantially means, for a cyclic business like  camping, when selling is over) learning launch was made to test the prototype

as early as possible: a tiny Safari Tent for 2 people was deployed in the  village, made in just a couple of weeks. Customers were asked If they would

have liked to stay in the structure for a reduced price, at the same time

accepting to  tell us more about their experience with the object. Personal  interaction with these customers allowed us to completely re-design our

concept: we sat with them, had coffee with them, chatted as they personally  showed us their needs for space, what they would have desired to find at they

arrival, where were problems with illumination missing or useless elements of  equipment. In short, we got in our customers boots and, relevantly, they were

happy with us doing so. We had the chance to develop an understanding of  the experience which led to the creation of a new prototype.

Insights

It was thanks to the application of the Learn Launching tool that we've been

able to identify the major discrepancies between what we though would work

(based on previously derived insights) and what actually worked (what

wowed, precisely).

As a matter of fact, certain aspects of the original project have been  preserved yet many others have been completely re-designed to meet our

customers needs. The tested assumptions showed us that the most valuable

characteristic of such an object wasn't the expensive furniture, nor the

completely equipped kitchen but rather a requirement of privacy. Stakeholders

found privacy to be their most valuable need, even if not, sometimes, explicitly  addresses.

Approach

Our team wasn't, in this case, prepared to handle the full generation of new

products entirely based on design thinking principles. The learning launch

Learning Launch: a way to the natural solution. 3

technique helped us gaining insight and directions for future development for

the product.

The subsequents year learning launch of the product was indeed completely  different: a few more units were integrated in the campings landscape,

naturally merging with the surrounding nature. The feedbacks were, in this

case, by far more enthusiastic and happy Confirming data should be the aim

of the learning launch tool).

These insights have proven to be of great importance to our organisation:  since then they have been incorporated and exploited. Remarkably, they have

been used as core elements and tested (with a very same second learning

launch experience) for the development of other projects, including a Safari

Tent for larger families, a concept which revolved primarily on the idea of

comfort through privacy. The very interaction with stakeholders experience  had been re-drawn from the first learning launch, allowing us to gain insights

not just on a distinct process, an isolated feature, but on a tool to build inside

a broader strategic thinking.

