Reflection : Learning Launch

1.  Challenge: Describe your challenge, including all relevant information.

I lead Customer Master Data for my organization, which includes maintaining Customer Name and   address records and mapping them to correct parent company name and address records.  All  commercial transactions like Marketing, Ordering, Shipping, Billing, Warranty & Support services  and Compensation uses the customer data we provide to stamp the correct customer in their  transactions.

We had a challenge to accurately compensate our sales employees due to the poor quality of  customer data.

2.  Selection: In your own words, briefly describe the tool you selected (e.g., what it is and why you selected it for your challenge - - including any appropriate video lecture references)

We had very limited knowledge of the problem and the extent of the impact, we had more  questions and very little answers. We adopted Learning Launch methodology to learn about the  problem, find out the facts and explore all possible solutions. We also want to experiment with a  small set of a sales team.

3.  Application: Describe how you applied the tool you selected to your challenge (e.g., what you did and how the tool was  applied effectively or ineffectively).

First, we started gathering data where we had the most complaints and identified set of sales  teams. We approached few of the sales members to be part of the pilot with the expectation they  help us understand the problem and their current process, in return, we offered to solve their  compensation problem.

We collected all relevant data on these pilot sales teams, learned about their selling process,  validated our assumptions and document their responses.  We learned about our dependencies  with few external partners who process our orders and send it to us for shipping the products. With  sales team help we connected with external agencies to learn about their process and data.

4.  Insight: Describe the insight you gained from applying the tool you selected to your challenge (e.g., how an insight affected  your thinking about the challenge and about design thinking more broadly).

We found many gaps in the current process, one of the biggest gaps we found in the way external  partner agencies process our orders, resulting in wrong customer information in the orders. These  inaccuracies in customer data were only one of the big reason for wrong compensation to our sales  teams.

We worked with the external agency, educated on the data what they’re sending and how it  impacts our process. Together, we worked out a solution to fix their process.

All along we were looking at fixing things internally. With design thinking methodology (Learning  Launch) we continued to explore our options, connecting with relevant small pilot stakeholders and  patiently learning from them is a big win. I strongly believe we can scale this approach and solution  to other sales teams.

5.  Approach: Describe what you might do differently next time -- applying the same tool you selected or a different one -- and the  reason(s) why.

I will continue to use the Learning Launch methodology as one of the primary design thinking tools,  as it helps to learn the truth, validate my assumptions, quickly fail and learn from it. Lastly, this  process helps to save time and money.

We have many bigger opportunities to innovate and solve complex problems for human beings, I  strongly believe we need to use the combination of design thinking tools (Visualization, Story- telling, Mind-mapping, Learning Launch). These tools expand our repertoire and prepare our mind  to a growth mindset.

My best wishes to you on your design thinking journey and to make a positive impact on fellow  human beings.

