Learning launch

Challenge

I am a member of one of very good and reputed organization famous as ‘Deloitte Haskins & Sells’. From many days people from this organization was doing “Narayan Seva”[serving food and clothes to needy people] in their own capacity, many members from our organization were unaware about this or they were not having time to do or contribute to this activity.

One day, few like minded people decided to expand this activity where we shall serve maximum people also can involve other members from organization directly or indirectly.

During our meeting we identified below challenges - 1. What to be served in breakfast and where to be served

2. From where will get food, how will cook

3. Fund

4. Man power

5. Continuity

6. What will be the reaction of the Sr. members of the organization as we did not involved them initially.

So from design thinking point of view “What IS” part is very much clear.

Selection

During our meeting we discussed on several options and approaches.  We thought to visit to trusts and identify their problem area and provide best possible solution.

 We thought to go to old age homes.

 We thought to go to village and identify the needy people.

 Same time we thought about food and cloths items, to be served.

 Discussed about money and required man power for smooth execution.

Please note when we were planning and discussing “What is” and “What if”, there were only 5 people and in our mind first thing was continuity and reaction of senior peoples.

So we decided to try the learning launch tool. As we know, the learning launch is an experiment meant to quickly test an idea and prototype.

Application

After doing lots of brainstorming sessions we come to the conclusion i.e. we got our “WHAT WOW”. For our first learning launch, we focused on the good, healthy and affordable food item.As a place we selected an area where daily wages workers come in

search of job.So we were ready for experiment and fast fail.

Initially we decided to do this activity only once in a month as we were not having any clue about cash flow, man power, no of people will turn out to avail our services etc.

After each event we used to gather to get the feedback on tea session which is very much famous now a days as ‘Chai pe charcha’ and lots of brainstorming was done to stream line the things.Below were the outcomes which change everything - 1. We identified caterer, not someone from outside but someone within the organization. We identified needy people who can be benefited and same time we ensured he or she must be regular in term of service.

2. After serving breakfast for 2-3 Sundays we shared about this new service/Seva within organization where we got unexpected support in turn it solved our man power and cash flow issue both.

Since then we never looked back, it’s more than 1year we are serving breakfast every Sunday. Today we have started this service in two different places and things are moving very smoothly.In future we may expect such more services.

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 process.Here our stakeholders were - 1. Our team of 5-6 peoples

2. Organization

3. Narayan’s

Once we got support from others our cash flow and man power issue got resolved, we spread our wings and now we have started our breakfast services to other places as well.Even today we do have feedback session which helps us to improve our breakfast Seva.There are members with in the team who look after the ancillary services.

After each event we learn from our mistakes and improve the same in next event.So this is learning for each of us which is making our services stronger and stronger and better.

The ongoing incorporation of insight is particularly important at this stage, as launches come before a full rollout in the design thinking timeline.

Approach

We succeed using learning launch but this is not like same approach will work for each project or other design tool would have not worked.So need to put complete thought through before you finalize any design tool.

There were other options/approaches/design tools as well but based on available resources we chooses this approach and succeed.

We would have discussed about our project with others organizations who have done similar activity in past and have experience or we would have discussed the same within our organization to have feedback and support.

Today due to this service our organization is well known and famous.Other existing, well established NGO’s are now learning from our experience.

Feedback :

During course we learned lots of design tools, some good and relevant examples but this will be helpful only when it will be used, experienced otherwise it’s just theory which will remain in books.

