Reflection - Learning Launch Tool

Challenge  I work for a small consulting company with focus on disruptive innovation and innovation

enablement. We work with our clients to help them create in their companies the environment

needed to thrive innovation and support them in the whole process needed to bring new ideas

onto the market.     One of our clients asked for support in the ideation and development of a new tool aiming to

increase customer engagement. After intensive brainstorming sessions with employees, the

company top management and customers, we decided to develop a mobile application, defining

with them also hypotheses and key assumptions necessary to achieve the objective.    We had to act fast as resources were limited and the proposed solution was expected to hit the

market as soon as possible.    Selection  Being the project highly customer-centric and the team used to work with the Design Thinking

method, we decided to use the Learning Launch Tool.     As explained in the ​Learning Launch Tool ​class, “The purpose of a learning launch is to get the

truth and then the truth either confirms or disconfirms your assumptions (...) Most learning

launches can be quick and cheap.”   This is exactly what we wanted to achieve!    Application  For the application of the tool we basically followed the steps presented during the course: as

“most learning launches involve getting out there and talking to customers, very, very quickly”

(​Learning Launch Tool class​)​, we very soon contacted a company specialized in recruiting

customers for qualitative and quantitative feedback.    A pilot of the application was built giving priority to the aspects that would allow us to confirm or

disconfirm our key assumptions: do customers really need such an application? Does the

application increase customer engagement? How should the application be built in order to

maximise usability?    Two phases could be distinguished:

- In a first phase, in order to be as fast as possible, we produced mock-ups of the solution

using Photoshop: feedback about the most basic assumptions (Is such an app useful?

What kind of structure understand customers best? …) was obtained presenting testers

just “screens” of the applications. This allowed us to start coding the application as

customers needed it.

- In a second phase, testers were asked to give feedback on early versions of the

application.

Insight  We have been very glad of having used the Learning Launch Tool - and more generally the

Design Thinking Method - for the project. Motivation inside our team and the client team

reached new heights and the project has been a success: the budget was not exceeded

(starting so early involving customers allowed us to minimize changes in the application and the

resulting expenses for coding) and the proposed solution could be delivered in record time.

Customers are using the application giving positive feedback and some of them - motivated by

the fact of having been involved so soon in the project - became “ambassadors” of the solution

helping it spread through word of mouth.    Approach  As described above, the decision to use the the ​Learning Launch Tool ​for this project showed to

be right. Immediately afterwards the client gave us another similar project. We will use for sure

the same tool again with some changes, though: our team was missing a skeptic on board and

during the project we fell a couple of time into the “confirmation bias”. For the next project we

aim to look for and involve some colleague of us skeptical with the project, saving so time and

delivering our customers a better solution.

