Learning Launch

Challenge

I am working at an escape-room company. We organize quest-rooms (or real-life room escape), it  is an intellectual game, where players are locked in a chamber and they need to find a way out  using supporting items and solving puzzles in conditions of limited time. Recently we have been  observing the fall in the number of customers and as a result the decrease of our profit. The problem  was, that nearby our competitor company opened an escape-room with performance and actors.  So, there must have been a completely new idea to attract customers. The challenge was to make  and come up with the new idea.

Selection

We have already tested several design thinking instruments and in this particular case we were  ready to implement learning launch tool to test our ideas. The learning launch is one of the design  thinking instruments that helps to test ideas.

Application

In the beginning, we were looking for solutions to organize special prices or prepare some events  for customers. However, these types of activities were not very effective in our case and hardly  changed the situation. So, we decided to make additional room for ‘extreme’ lovers, with brand  new plot, actors and overall atmosphere for clients, based on the on the stories of sir Arthur Conan  Doyle about adventures of Sherlock Holmes. The point was, that there were a couple of actors,  involved in the escape-room. According to the plot, the players were locked in the castle with the  sinister butcher, who tried to find the so-called guests. So, the real actor came in the room every  fifteen minutes and the players needed to find a safe-place. The one, who did not manage to hide,  was captured by the butcher and quitted from the game. In this case, players must work like a real  team, support each other and act in conditions of uncertainties and fear. We wanted the idea to be  implemented with maximum combination of teamwork, frightful atmosphere and spirit of  adventures of Sherlock Holmes. Moreover, it was one of the wildest ideas, because include  additional actors in the game was meant additional investments. However, it worked.

Innovativeness was the dominant factor by establishing new idea. Involving actors in the rooms,  which may quit the player out of it was pretty novel and not popularized. The point was, that player  tries to solve puzzle in the real conditions not only of a limited time, but also of fear. Furthermore,  there were enough safe-places for all players, but they have a very few time to hide before butcher  come in. So, they must have acted harmoniously and helped each other. In this case, the novelty  was also in making the quest for developing teamwork skills. For sure, in order to cope with  obstacles and barriers, we tried to analyze possible profits, advantages and disadvantages of the  idea, to identify wild cards of the project and outline target audience.

Insight

By using the learning launch tool, we were able to confirm our idea concerning remaking of our  escape-room, involving actors and brining brand new concepts. As a part of this approach we used  surveys in order to know the opinions of possible customers and to evaluate their readiness to test  something new in escape-room business. The results of our analysis were significant for the  company in increasing the number of clients. However, several of our proposals that were

supported by us eventually underwent some changes. For instance, due to the budgetary constraints  and number of rooms in our ‘office’ the company could not add a new room. Instead of doing so,  we chose to redesign and remake a least popular escape-room. The budgetary constraints of the  company will be analyzed by us and adapt to the further steps of learning launches.

Approach

We have already used other approaches of design thinking before, and as consequence the learning  launch was a logical step for our company to make, especially in terms of strict competition. So,  the next phase of learning launch will be the focus on finding new channels of communication  with the clients, getting the feedback and improving the escape-rooms.

