TC Team Sathyabama – Learning Launch for challenging sales team on new Business

Challenge

I belong to the technical consulting team within my organizations Telecoms department and our  challenge is analyzing and conducting feasibility of taking on new projects or business brought in by the  sales team in order to optimize resources and increase revenue, thus maximizing profits and  subsequently avoiding the use of resources on small business with little return on investment. The  feasibility analysis scope definition consists of the sales team (3 members), technical consulting team (4  members) and the development team (10 members). The scope involves only internal stakeholders and  is confined to internal resources such as budget, time and tool capacity. The feasibility analysis must be  completed within a maximum of 3 days and the feasibility should clearly define resource cost per team  for the duration of the potential project or business, timelines for the completion and identification of  potential threats.

Selection

The Sathyabama technical consulting team has successfully complete the design thinking course and have  become familiar with the many tools described by the course. We have collectively decided to adopt the  learning launch tool because we feel this tool time efficient and will allow us to test ideas or various  feasibility methods in a timely manner that is favorable to the overall success of the organization.

Application

For our first attempt of using the learning launch, we have directed our attention on the prioritization of  project tasks. In essence we wanted to identify whether efficient execution of task priority and  execution would allow for the Technical consulting team to meet the delivery requirements of all  business acquired by the sales team. The team then completed a survey which included topics around  the sequence of tasks, the testing methods, the evaluation of tasks, task allocation process and also the  way the team felt about adopting a new process on taking on and prioritizing new business. This survey  was complete in 5 days.

For the second attempt of using the learning launch tool, we aimed at understanding the sequence of  completing tasks specifically we wanted to check if we re-arrange the sequence of tasks would time,  quality and security be impact the output. Also this would confirm whether the team could function in a  more agile manner. The technical consulting team went on a 5 day agile project management training  and after the training we setup as series brain storming sessions over a 5 day period to structure and  position our tasks and processes in an agile centric way.

Insight

As a result of applying the learning launch tool the technical consulting team outlined expectations and  prepared launches to check if these expectations were met. In parallel, the technical team examined the  results obtained from the completed surveys and agile project management workshops to confirm that

an agile approach would aid the organization and the sales team on taking on new business while  improving workflow and meeting new business requirements. Despite the technical team adopting the  re-aligning of sequence of tasks and adjusting task priority, there were genuine concerns identified by  the internal stakeholders in the development teams. As these tasks would impact their workflows.  Therefore the technical team have taken noted of these concerns and plan to address them in future  launch designs. Due to the fact that launches come before full roll out in design thinking timeline there  has been a great deal of emphasis on continuous incorporation of insight.

Approach

As described, the technical team has completed the design thinking course and are familiar with the  various design thinking tools and are therefore at this stage of the timeline, suffice to say that the  learning launch tool is and adequate tool for this challenge. The technical team would need to  continuously incorporate and revisit the insight acquired from the initial 2 launches and utilize this  insight for future designs.  As part of the feasibility conducted for new business, the insight acquired  must be measured by reflecting progress, delivery success, customer satisfaction, quality and security  indexes get ultimately getting closer to a robust solution for rollout.

