Challenge: I work as product manager for a power sector-based company. I was  entrusted with the responsibility of developing a technology-based product for  online monitoring of an asset. We included several features in the product after  involving a cross functional team and including customers in a closed loop. Now we  developed a hypothesis that this product was beneficial to a particular group of  customers. Next was to launch the product to such customers in one of the power  sector exhibitions. The risk was what if the launch is not a success. We could not  afford a failed launch and hence we wanted to test this product before the BIG  launch.

Selection: I wanted to test my hypothesis in a fast and cheap way. So that if I fail, I  can immediately pivot my hypothesis without incurring large investment in the  exhibition. Hence, I chose the learning launch tool of design thinking. For this, we  developed a small prototype and identified 2 customers who were in that targeted  segment.

Application: The hypothesis of our prototype was that this selected segment of  customers will find value in the features of the product which we were  communicating. We approached the customers with our small prototype and  communicate the value by making a small demonstration. We highlighted the  differentiating factors of our product and the features that we thought would  delight the customer.

Insight: We realised that the features we thought was a wow factor for the  customers was not that impactful and hence the customer was not seeing the value  which we thought he would find. However, there were features which he liked more  than we had anticipated. Hence, we found a new value proposition for our product  which we had missed. Now we knew that what exactly this particular segment of  customers was looking for. So instead of making the BIG launch with older product,  we now had the option of tweaking the sales pitch. This meant that now we would  pitch our product more around that particular feature which would ensure that this  product will be liked by the people it was meant for.

Approach: With the learnings from the tool learning launch, we would make tweaks  in our products and collaborate again with the cross functional team and customers  to further refine our product. In our future product releases too, we are going to  adapt the learning launch too to find out quick and cheap outcome of our  prototypes.

