Learning Launch

Challenge & Selection

In my current position as a project manager at a semi-government entity, I lead several projects  aiming to increase the energy efficiency of the transportation sector in my country. One of the  opportunities is to reduce the fuel consumption of heavy-duty vehicles by using aerodynamic  devices which has not been regulated in the country yet. These devices have low demand due  to the lack of a verification system to demonstrates their benefits.

My team and I were responsible of developing and designing a system to verify the  effectiveness of aerodynamic devices on reducing fuel consumption for heavy-duty vehicles.  Our main stakeholder is the end-user which are aerodynamic device manufacturers. And one of  the main challenges we faced is the eligibility of the devices manufactured globally for the local  market. And some manufacturers are not familiar with the local safety requirements.  Therefore, there was a need to raise the awareness of the manufacturers about these  requirements.

After applying the design thinking and creativity process, we end up with an idea of presenting  the device requirements in an audio-visual way instead of wordy description while filling the  application. So, the user will learn about the requirements in a less boring way before applying  for verification. We used a number of design thinking and creativity tools to come up with ideas  and used learning launch to test them using prototypes that are quickly built and cheap to test  our assumptions and resolve uncertainties.

Application

We had a several uncertainties and assumptions which the learning launch are designed to  answer. Such as what are the duration of the video that balances informative content but  prevent it from being boring, and how effective will it be in delivering the information.

Before producing the video, we developed storyboards which are sketched pictures containing  the device requirements and it describes the idea behind each scene. This was to determine the  optimum duration of the videos that fulfil its purpose and make sure it’s not boring.

The storyboards were presented to experts in the awareness field in my organization, after that  it was presented to some device manufacturers and asked the following questions:

o “What is this about?”

o “Who is this for? Who are the target audience?”

o “Do you need to watch it again?”

o “If it transformed to a video, what do you think the suitable duration of it?”

o “Do you think it will be fun to watch?”

o “What are the requirements mentioned in the video?”

o “How could it be improved?”

Insight & Approach

The most valuable feedback we received was: Why only one video describing all the  requirements of all device types? Why not a separate video for each device type depends on  the application? This will shorten the video duration for the applicant and make it more  focused. As the feedback suggested, the Solution was modified and the decision were made to  produce multiple videos for each device type, and it will be played once the applicant inputs the  device type in the application.

Learning Launch is very useful tool which help in refining the ideas and ensure that ideas can be  eliminated early to avoid costly wrong decisions. Engaging the stakeholders and receiving their  feedbacks helps reaching the best possible solution.

