Reflection – Learning Launch 

 Challenge 

 I am working for a big IT Consulting company . I ’m part of a team which is responsible for dealing with   Enterprise Resource Planning ( ERP ) systems . Recently , I joined a project where our customer ( a   fortune 500 corporation ) migrated their ERP operations from a rather old software version to a very   newer software version . This planned migration took about one and a half years to complete , which   is the normal time frame for complex and large - scale IT transformations . Now , during all this time ,   enhancement requests * from different business units of the client were naturally kept on hold . So ,   the number of such requests went on increasing . After the successful go - live , few new members   including myself joined the team and our task was to effectively and efficiently deal with the pending   enhancement requests .    * An enhancement request is meant to improve some specific process from the systems perspective ,   which eventually helps a business in saving time and money . 

 Selection 

 We decided to use the Learning Launch tool . The plan was to pick only a handful of requests from   the pool and drive those requests from their design to completion . The less number of requests   would ensure a short time frame . The idea behind it was to observe the process / stages to find out   what ’s working and what ’s causing issues . It would also let us know the challenges so that we can   possibly modify our approach while scaling out . Initially , there were some concerns from client side   but after holding a detailed discussion , we were able to convince them with our plan . We reckoned   that it was our best bet to learn from one short execution cycle , later do full scale implementation(s )   and keep the whole business with us . On this project , I was working in the capacity of IT Business   Analyst cum Functional Consultant . 

 Lecture Reference : https://www.coursera.org/learn/uva-darden-design-thinking   innovation / lecture / F04r6 / learning - launch - tool 

 Application 

 We requested business champions of different business units ( spanning across EU , APAC , LATAM ,   MEA and Americas ) to cherry - pick some requests which they wanted us to work on a priority basis .   We reviewed these requests and found that few of the requests were very complex in nature . Then ,   we had a meeting with business champions and were able to convince them that deferring some of   these requests would be in everyone ’s interest . Total pool of requests was 250 + . The pool of requests   was not static but growing because client ’s users across geographies were using the new ERP system   and discovering some new gaps or coming up with “ should have ” features or “ Wish - Lists ” . These   requests were vetted and then finally added to the pool by a separate team ( client ’s customer care ) . 

 We initially got about 22 requests to work upon but we mutually agreed to pick 16 requests for the   initial learning launch . Then , some quick follow - up discussions were held where we finalized the   design . After that , a team of four developers and a technical lead had two weeks to finish the work .   I was closely coordinating with the team and also testing the requirements as soon as the technical   lead was done with his review . This helped the team with timely inputs and initial feedback . With   this strategy , we entered the CRP ( Conference Room Pilot ) phase within three weeks of the kick - off   date . Then , much of the activities followed as they usually do in a SDLC i.e. User testing , issue 

 reporting and resolution and then full - fledged SIT . In SIT , apart from the requesters , other key users   were also invited to test the new functionalities . Some new issues were also logged and development   worked to resolve those issues as quickly as possible . Then , we reached the FAT phase and it was   mostly smooth . We migrated the new functionalities to client ’s new production system in a little over   two months . It was well received by business champions and the work was greatly appreciated . 

 Now , to some of us , two months may sound like a lot of time but in ERP space , it is not . It ’s because   the deliverables have to meet the established quality standards and they also have an impact on how   clients do their business . But from this ‘ Learning Launch ’ , we learnt a lot of things . We actually ended   up making a SharePoint page for recording ‘ Lessons Learnt ’ and it was open to every team member .   This exercise equipped us with the right tools and provided us an opportunity to fine - tune our   strategy . It provided us with the confidence boost to deal with the remaining pool of requests . It   did n’t surprise us when we found out that some new requests have also been logged during this   intermediate time . This was going to be a constant stream of business for us and value - add for the   client ’s operations . Based on the feedback from the concerned stakeholders , client was more than   convinced that it would be a worthy idea to make this a long term iterative project . 

 Insight 

 As mentioned above , we created a ‘ Lessons Learnt ’ page . There were several insights , a few of those   are listed below : 

    Most of the requests were marked as ‘ Global ’ ( impacting all business units ) by client ’s   customer care and hence they were developed as such . While in reality , some of these were   raised by a particular business unit and had no value - add for other business units . In fact ,   there were two requests which caused issues for multiple business units . Subsequently , we   came up with a mechanism to control the applicability . So , learning was to ensure that the   requests were truly global . 

    An associated learning was to conduct a detailed cost - benefit analysis , especially for the   requests which were applicable for a particular business unit only . This action was on client ’s   customer care team . 

    We realized that some of the third party system which were needed for testing the   developed requests were down or behaving erratically in the demo environments . We had   to do a lot of coordination with other vendors and client ’s team to make it work . So , going   forward , we added a prerequisite related to the functioning of all third party system . 

    There was a three - year - old request in the backlog and it made it to our Learning Launch list .   During CRP , business realized that they no longer want it since the associated operation has   changed since then . So , it was decided to have an additional review process in case the   request is more than one - year - old . Only after the review , requests would get picked up by   the development team . 

 Without the Learning launch , a full - scale project would have been so difficult for us to execute and              most likely marred with several problems ! 

 Approach 

 In future , I would also like to deploy the Mind Mapping tool . In my line of work , Mind Mapping could   be useful during several stages of a project . While dealing with complex projects of a large scale , it   would be good to identify all the concerned stakeholders and bring them to a table ( could be   virtual / video conferences for team placed in different geographies ) . For instance , Representatives   from business side could talk about different functional and technical aspects and the results they   are expecting from the project . Delivery team could talk about the challenges and risks that they   think could become a roadblock . In this manner , very interesting insights could be derived . These   insights could be categorized into several parts . It would allow creation of Action Lists , Mitigation   Plans , List of checkpoints et cetera . All the moving pieces would be visible to everyone and how are   they connected to each other and then how everything is related to one central vision of the project .   Use of whiteboards in these meetings would really aid in describing the flows , diagrams and ideas . 

 Many of the ‘ Lessons learnt ’ which I have described in the previous section could have been   discovered quite early , if we were to use the Mind Mapping approach . Going forward , my strategy   would be to use a combination of Mind Mapping and Learning Launch . I would also strive to shorten   the time frame of Learning Launch and appeal for increased participation from the stakeholders to   have additional inputs for innovation and optimum solution design . 


EMAIL: 
ID_NUM: 
NAME_STUDENT: 
PHONE_NUM: 
STREET_ADDRESS: 
URL_PERSONAL: 
USERNAME: 

### Task: You are a PII (Personal Identity Information) Detection. Given a essays written by students, you have to identify ONLY the following:
NAME_STUDENT - The full or partial name of a student that is not necessarily the author of the essay. This excludes instructors, authors, and other person names.
EMAIL - A student’s email address.
USERNAME - A student's username on any platform.
ID_NUM - A number or sequence of characters that could be used to identify a student, such as a student ID or a social security number.
PHONE_NUM - A phone number associated with a student.
URL_PERSONAL - A URL that might be used to identify a student.
STREET_ADDRESS - A full or partial street address that is associated with the student, such as their home address.
### Input: Reflection – Learning Launch 

 Challenge 

 I am working for a big IT Consulting company . I ’m part of a team which is responsible for dealing with   Enterprise Resource Planning ( ERP ) systems . Recently , I joined a project where our customer ( a   fortune 500 corporation ) migrated their ERP operations from a rather old software version to a very   newer software version . This planned migration took about one and a half years to complete , which   is the normal time frame for complex and large - scale IT transformations . Now , during all this time ,   enhancement requests * from different business units of the client were naturally kept on hold . So ,   the number of such requests went on increasing . After the successful go - live , few new members   including myself joined the team and our task was to effectively and efficiently deal with the pending   enhancement requests .    * An enhancement request is meant to improve some specific process from the systems perspective ,   which eventually helps a business in saving time and money . 

 Selection 

 We decided to use the Learning Launch tool . The plan was to pick only a handful of requests from   the pool and drive those requests from their design to completion . The less number of requests   would ensure a short time frame . The idea behind it was to observe the process / stages to find out   what ’s working and what ’s causing issues . It would also let us know the challenges so that we can   possibly modify our approach while scaling out . Initially , there were some concerns from client side   but after holding a detailed discussion , we were able to convince them with our plan . We reckoned   that it was our best bet to learn from one short execution cycle , later do full scale implementation(s )   and keep the whole business with us . On this project , I was working in the capacity of IT Business   Analyst cum Functional Consultant . 

 Lecture Reference : https://www.coursera.org/learn/uva-darden-design-thinking   innovation / lecture / F04r6 / learning - launch - tool 

 Application 

 We requested business champions of different business units ( spanning across EU , APAC , LATAM ,   MEA and Americas ) to cherry - pick some requests which they wanted us to work on a priority basis .   We reviewed these requests and found that few of the requests were very complex in nature . Then ,   we had a meeting with business champions and were able to convince them that deferring some of   these requests would be in everyone ’s interest . Total pool of requests was 250 + . The pool of requests   was not static but growing because client ’s users across geographies were using the new ERP system   and discovering some new gaps or coming up with “ should have ” features or “ Wish - Lists ” . These   requests were vetted and then finally added to the pool by a separate team ( client ’s customer care ) . 

 We initially got about 22 requests to work upon but we mutually agreed to pick 16 requests for the   initial learning launch . Then , some quick follow - up discussions were held where we finalized the   design . After that , a team of four developers and a technical lead had two weeks to finish the work .   I was closely coordinating with the team and also testing the requirements as soon as the technical   lead was done with his review . This helped the team with timely inputs and initial feedback . With   this strategy , we entered the CRP ( Conference Room Pilot ) phase within three weeks of the kick - off   date . Then , much of the activities followed as they usually do in a SDLC i.e. User testing , issue 

 reporting and resolution and then full - fledged SIT . In SIT , apart from the requesters , other key users   were also invited to test the new functionalities . Some new issues were also logged and development   worked to resolve those issues as quickly as possible . Then , we reached the FAT phase and it was   mostly smooth . We migrated the new functionalities to client ’s new production system in a little over   two months . It was well received by business champions and the work was greatly appreciated . 

 Now , to some of us , two months may sound like a lot of time but in ERP space , it is not . It ’s because   the deliverables have to meet the established quality standards and they also have an impact on how   clients do their business . But from this ‘ Learning Launch ’ , we learnt a lot of things . We actually ended   up making a SharePoint page for recording ‘ Lessons Learnt ’ and it was open to every team member .   This exercise equipped us with the right tools and provided us an opportunity to fine - tune our   strategy . It provided us with the confidence boost to deal with the remaining pool of requests . It   did n’t surprise us when we found out that some new requests have also been logged during this   intermediate time . This was going to be a constant stream of business for us and value - add for the   client ’s operations . Based on the feedback from the concerned stakeholders , client was more than   convinced that it would be a worthy idea to make this a long term iterative project . 

 Insight 

 As mentioned above , we created a ‘ Lessons Learnt ’ page . There were several insights , a few of those   are listed below : 

    Most of the requests were marked as ‘ Global ’ ( impacting all business units ) by client ’s   customer care and hence they were developed as such . While in reality , some of these were   raised by a particular business unit and had no value - add for other business units . In fact ,   there were two requests which caused issues for multiple business units . Subsequently , we   came up with a mechanism to control the applicability . So , learning was to ensure that the   requests were truly global . 

    An associated learning was to conduct a detailed cost - benefit analysis , especially for the   requests which were applicable for a particular business unit only . This action was on client ’s   customer care team . 

    We realized that some of the third party system which were needed for testing the   developed requests were down or behaving erratically in the demo environments . We had   to do a lot of coordination with other vendors and client ’s team to make it work . So , going   forward , we added a prerequisite related to the functioning of all third party system . 

    There was a three - year - old request in the backlog and it made it to our Learning Launch list .   During CRP , business realized that they no longer want it since the associated operation has   changed since then . So , it was decided to have an additional review process in case the   request is more than one - year - old . Only after the review , requests would get picked up by   the development team . 

 Without the Learning launch , a full - scale project would have been so difficult for us to execute and              most likely marred with several problems ! 

 Approach 

 In future , I would also like to deploy the Mind Mapping tool . In my line of work , Mind Mapping could   be useful during several stages of a project . While dealing with complex projects of a large scale , it   would be good to identify all the concerned stakeholders and bring them to a table ( could be   virtual / video conferences for team placed in different geographies ) . For instance , Representatives   from business side could talk about different functional and technical aspects and the results they   are expecting from the project . Delivery team could talk about the challenges and risks that they   think could become a roadblock . In this manner , very interesting insights could be derived . These   insights could be categorized into several parts . It would allow creation of Action Lists , Mitigation   Plans , List of checkpoints et cetera . All the moving pieces would be visible to everyone and how are   they connected to each other and then how everything is related to one central vision of the project .   Use of whiteboards in these meetings would really aid in describing the flows , diagrams and ideas . 

 Many of the ‘ Lessons learnt ’ which I have described in the previous section could have been   discovered quite early , if we were to use the Mind Mapping approach . Going forward , my strategy   would be to use a combination of Mind Mapping and Learning Launch . I would also strive to shorten   the time frame of Learning Launch and appeal for increased participation from the stakeholders to   have additional inputs for innovation and optimum solution design .
### Output: 