Learning Launch for a 2 Day Training Course

Challenge and Selection  The Design Thinking tool I chose was the Learning Launch. We use this to quickly and cheaply test an  idea and prove or disprove our assumptions. This is an approach I’ve used in business many times  when we’re trying something new and want to ensure we’re doing the right thing before we roll  something out fully – a fast, cheap experiment before we jump into the unknown.

The project in question was to sell, develop, deliver and get accreditation for a 2 day training course  for project managers. After a series of brainstorming sessions on new ideas we could do we had a  hunch the training course was something project managers would be interested in but it was  different to our other offerings and to offerings from our competitors. We wanted to know that the  material covered in the course was most likely what the target project managers were interested in  and that they would pay to attend the training. In short, we wanted to test our key assumptions  regarding the course content and whether it was attractive to the market. To develop the entire  training course, get accreditation and then find out our potential customers weren’t interested  would have been expensive and time consuming so we decided to run a Learning Launch to find out  if we were more likely to succeed before we invested fully in developing the training.

Application  We started the process by looking at the learning objectives for the accreditation of the course and  putting together a course description and outline which both matched the learning objectives and,  in our view would be interesting to project managers.

Rather than jump into developing the course and gaining accreditation we took the course outline  and created a PDF document, scheduled some courses nationally (we’re in New Zealand so it’s only a  small country) and added them to a course schedule on our website. Any interested project  managers could download the course outline PDF to review the course content and if they wanted  to attend they could register and pay for the training course online. Of course, in scheduling the  courses we gave ourselves enough time to develop the training course and get the material  accredited if our assumptions were proven. If they weren’t proven then we could either pivot and  adjust our course outline or park the idea for another time.

We then had key people from each of our 3 main offices talk to our corporate clients who had a  ‘Project Management Office’ and asked them to look at our website and review the course outline.  We asked for feedback on the content and were conscious not to push people to sign up for the  training. We left that in their hands, knowing that if they did it was because the course looked  attractive – our assumptions would be proven. The ultimate test for us was if people registered and  paid for the training. Getting users to ultimately pay for the training course was the ultimate  indicator to us that the course content was something project managers wanted.

Insight and Approach  What we learned from conducting this exercise was that the training course was indeed attractive to  project managers. Within 2 weeks one of our courses in our largest city had enough registered  participants to know it would definitely go ahead. The feedback from our existing clients had been  positive too. There were a couple of topics not covered in the course outline or learning objectives  that they were particularly interested in too so we made sure to include them in an updated course  outline and in the course material once it was created.

We then set about putting together a ‘Lean Business Canvas’ (a really light business case) to get  some internal funding to create the course material – this involved some staff setting aside key time  and a set number of hours to develop the material and gain accreditation so there was a reasonable  cost component for the company. Given that we’d already undertaken a Learning Launch and  proved our assumptions (with a few tweaks of the content) and had a course already confirmed with  paid participants, approval was a mere formality.

This Learning Launch approach is now seen as a successful way to experiment with new initiatives  innovations quickly and cheaply across the company.

If we were to undertake this project again I think I would separate the feedback of the course outline  from the course registration process. I think we were lucky that the course content was hitting the  mark and project managers registered for the training. If they hadn’t have registered we would have  been stuck in a quandary of not knowing if the course outline was the objection, or if they liked the  outline but the price for the course was too high. In future we might not be so lucky. I’m now more  conscious of combining assumptions and making sure we’re not testing too many assumptions at  once (price and content outline in this example) but in this case the Learning Launch proved  successful in that it validated our assumptions and meant we were more confident of success once  we developed the course material.

