REFLECTION – LEARNING LAUNCH    Irfan Khan

Reflection – Learning Launch

Challenge    I was recently promoted as the team leader of a small team consisting of two (2) web  developers, one (1) graphic designer, one (1) marketing associate and one (1) lead  generation specialist and my/our challenge is to create an effective workflow within the team  in order to successfully develop and launch our client’s brand. The project scope includes  building a brand, starting a marketing campaign and launch a website. The team of five (5)  employees will work on this project with an even distribution of working hours amongst the  team members. The completion of this project should not exceed 45 business days. We will  focus on trying to determine what is the best workflow that works for our team.       Selection     This will be the first design thinking activities/tools that our team will try, and we chose the  learning launch tool because we think that this is the best way for us to determine what  workflow structure will best work for our team.      Application    For our first learning launch, we focused on the structure of our task delegation and  management. We decided to use Trello for tasks management and tracking the progress of  each task and Slack as our tool of communication. We created one Trello card for each task  and assigned them to the specific team members. We also created two (2) additional Trello  cards, namely, In Progress and Completed and as the name suggest, these cards are used  to track the progress of each of the tasks. This tested our assumption that using a structure  for task delegation and management were the main causes of our workflow challenge. We  have an assumption that if we will not use a project management software for task  delegation and management, we will have a hard time tracking the progress of each tasks  and worst we will not complete the project on time. We expected that if we continue to  operate using this workflow and it will benefit our team in our future projects.    For our second learning launch, we focused on breaking down the whole project into sub- projects and determined what are the tasks that we need to be accomplished on each sub- project. We then determined whom to assign each task and set timeline with buffer. Each of  the team members worked on their specific assigned tasks but at the same time are always  available to extend their help to other team members who are in need of their assistance.  This tested our assumption that not breaking down the whole project into sub-project was  the main cause of our workflow challenge.      Insight     By applying the learning launch tool, our team identified our assumptions and designed  launches to test these assumptions. We have our anticipated results and expectations, and  we are glad that the actual results matched what we anticipated. We managed to complete  the project without difficulty and delivered it in the completion time that was set. Although  there is some instance where the deadline of the specific task was extended, being  transparent about it with the client helps in making them understand what is the cause the  delay and what are the steps that we took to make sure that we will still meet the completion

REFLECTION – LEARNING LAUNCH    Irfan Khan

time that was set. Moving forward, our team will review this insight and incorporate it into  future launch designs.       Approach    As previously mentioned, this is the first design thinking activities/tools that our team tried  and at this stage in the timeline, the learning launch is the appropriate tool. We are quite  satisfied that the workflow structure that decided to use worked for our team in this project,  but we will keep on mind to review the insights gained from our first two launches and  incorporate this insight into future launch designs.

