Learning Launch for “Cognition Research Product and Platform”    Challenge:  I’m a senior Strategy and Business Development manager for a technology company  working in the Biotech industry. We operate in the pre-clinical phase of the drug  development process and our products and platforms are used by Pharmaceutical  companies, CRO’s, Research Institutes, Hospitals across EU, Asia and Americas. In my efforts  for looking at new product developments to explore revenue generation opportunities we  decided to enter into a 4yr project to develop Cognition based product and technology  solutions targeting obesity research in young children. We collaborated with 3 external  stakeholders including a leading academic University to provide us with the expertise in  science and R&D along with a nutrition focused organization to test our hypothesis of  developing an innovative platform that would expedite the cognition tests for rodents and  yield high-throughput and high-quality pre-clinical data.    Selection:  Our collective team has gone through several of the design thinking processes including the  creation of the product prototype and so we are now ready to move to the learning Launch  tool. Our aim to perform an experiment to quickly test the validity of our idea and usability  of the new product.    Application:  Our first learning launch was focused on the usability and efficiency of the prototype of our  new cognition platform. In particular we wanted to gauge the ease of use and adaptability  of our (product) prototype and cognition platform in the day to day operational setting in a  laboratory environment. We wanted to also gauge how researchers interacted with the  platform and if they were intuitively able to use the platform and take advantage of its  benefits. This tested our assumption that our platform design and workflow was indeed  more efficient and incredibly faster to use in comparison to legacy approaches of doing  these studies. We arranged a 2 days training with the researchers and scientists to get them  familiar with the (product) prototype and technology platform and get them started with  using it. We worked with a team of 18 neuroscience researchers from 3 different groups  over a period of 3 weeks. Through this exercise, we expected to gain insights into the  usability, adaptability and the efficiency of our platform on a rating scale developed  specially for these parameters. Additionally, we also hoped to gather targeted learnings  about these parameters in terms of what was missing.     Insight:  What my team and I learned through the learning launch was that our product prototype  was easy to work with and install in the Labs given its minimalistic square shape. The  modular nature of the prototype ensured that researchers can scale it up (by easily  connecting several prototypes) or down as per their research needs and through-put  targets. We also got solid data about the ease of use and adaptability of our technology  platform in several different research protocols. We observed that the researchers were  able to start using the platform with minimal training and benefitted from having an  intuitive experiment administration. The researchers were also extremely comfortable with  using the detailed analytical features of the platform and were able to prepare reports

within the platform’s domain without having to export raw data into other statistical  packages. This saved a lot of critical time and the need to learn and understand other  software packages. These findings were very encouraging and gave a lot of confidence to  our hypothesis.     Approach:  Through the learning launch tool of Design Thinking we were able to ensure quick fact- based learning to move ahead with our project. We found this exercise very valuable. We  will conduct a 3 other learning launches to further evaluate the economics, licensing and  delivery aspects of our product (prototype) and technology platform.


Learning Launch for “ Cognition Research Product and Platform ” Challenge : I ’m a senior Strategy and Business Development manager for a technology company working in the Biotech industry . We operate in the pre - clinical phase of the drug development process and our products and platforms are used by Pharmaceutical companies , CRO ’s , Research Institutes , Hospitals across EU , Asia and Americas . In my efforts for looking at new product developments to explore revenue generation opportunities we decided to enter into a 4yr project to develop Cognition based product and technology solutions targeting obesity research in young children . We collaborated with 3 external stakeholders including a leading academic University to provide us with the expertise in science and R&D along with a nutrition focused organization to test our hypothesis of developing an innovative platform that would expedite the cognition tests for rodents and yield high - throughput and high - quality pre - clinical data . Selection : Our collective team has gone through several of the design thinking processes including the creation of the product prototype and so we are now ready to move to the learning Launch tool . Our aim to perform an experiment to quickly test the validity of our idea and usability of the new product . Application : Our first learning launch was focused on the usability and efficiency of the prototype of our new cognition platform . In particular we wanted to gauge the ease of use and adaptability of our ( product ) prototype and cognition platform in the day to day operational setting in a laboratory environment . We wanted to also gauge how researchers interacted with the platform and if they were intuitively able to use the platform and take advantage of its benefits . This tested our assumption that our platform design and workflow was indeed more efficient and incredibly faster to use in comparison to legacy approaches of doing these studies . We arranged a 2 days training with the researchers and scientists to get them familiar with the ( product ) prototype and technology platform and get them started with using it . We worked with a team of 18 neuroscience researchers from 3 different groups over a period of 3 weeks . Through this exercise , we expected to gain insights into the usability , adaptability and the efficiency of our platform on a rating scale developed specially for these parameters . Additionally , we also hoped to gather targeted learnings about these parameters in terms of what was missing . Insight : What my team and I learned through the learning launch was that our product prototype was easy to work with and install in the Labs given its minimalistic square shape . The modular nature of the prototype ensured that researchers can scale it up ( by easily connecting several prototypes ) or down as per their research needs and through - put targets . We also got solid data about the ease of use and adaptability of our technology platform in several different research protocols . We observed that the researchers were able to start using the platform with minimal training and benefitted from having an intuitive experiment administration . The researchers were also extremely comfortable with using the detailed analytical features of the platform and were able to prepare reports within the platform ’s domain without having to export raw data into other statistical packages . This saved a lot of critical time and the need to learn and understand other software packages . These findings were very encouraging and gave a lot of confidence to our hypothesis . Approach : Through the learning launch tool of Design Thinking we were able to ensure quick fact- based learning to move ahead with our project . We found this exercise very valuable . We will conduct a 3 other learning launches to further evaluate the economics , licensing and delivery aspects of our product ( prototype ) and technology platform .