Effective workflow management within an Ed-Tech company

Challenge:

Being a member of an online marketing department in an Education technology company and my/our  challenge is to improve the workflow (activities and projects) within the department in order to increase  sales in the online channel and to spend marketing budgets on the right campaigns. The project scope  includes the online marketing department composed of three employees, as well as the larger Business  Development department, with whom we work closely. The project is limited to internal resources (i.e.,  budget and employee time). The project should not exceed 30 business days and the solution should  include an even distribution of working hours amongst the team members. We will focus on trying to  uncover what our team members, as well as key stakeholders within the larger marketing department  and BD department, consider to be ineffective or problematic with regard to the workflow.

Selection:

Our team has already gone through several design thinking activities/tools, so we are ready to try the  learning launch tool. Broadly speaking, the learning launch is an experiment meant to quickly and  cheaply test an idea.

Application:

Using the learning launch tool, we wanted to see if we could structure our tasks, projects, and processes  to adapt the methods of Scrum project management for our work (e.g., time boxed, daily, specific  meetings, reviews, etc.) to effectively perform our tasks and be more agile. This tested our assumption  that the structure and execution were the main causes of our workflow challenge. Our team went  through a two-day training with a Scrum project management coach. Next, we went through two  workshops to structure our tasks and processes in a more agile way. These two sessions occurred within  in a three-week timeframe. We expected to produce a document with a clear description of our new,  more agile processes/workflow. For our second learning launch, we focused on gaining clarity about our  tasks and priorities. This tested our assumption that our prioritization of tasks was the main cause of our  workflow challenge. Our team completed an anonymous survey. Additionally, five key stakeholders from  the larger marketing department and BD department also completed an anonymous survey. The surveys  included questions about our new, proposed process, understanding the process and the prioritization  of tasks, and feelings about the change, and were conducted within a one-week timeframe.

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 prioritization of tasks and process. Our actual results were slightly different from  what we anticipated: while our team was open to the prioritization of tasks and process, the key

stakeholders in the larger marketing department and BD department expressed some concerns. Moving  forward, our team will review this insight and incorporate it into future launch designs. The ongoing  incorporation of insight is particularly important at this stage.

Approach:

Given that our team has already gone through several design thinking activities/tools and are at this  stage in the timeline, the learning launch is the appropriate tool. As previously mentioned, our team  needs to review the insight gained from our first two launches and incorporate this insight into future  launch designs. Future launch designs should reflect insight gained, progress made, and come closer to a  compelling solution to the problems we face.

