Reflection – Learning Launch 

 Challenge 

 I am an Engineering student and I minor in Entrepreneurship . As I ’ve taken several classes 

 focusing on entrepreneurship , I ’ve had to deal with the classic idea generation process and 

 tools many times . I´ve had to write a lot of business plans , to draw or elaborate many 

 prototypes and to write some journey maps . The interesting thing about these processes is 

 that in none of them we ’ve come to a real - life project and it never passes the step of the 

 hypothetical calculations , statements and results . Clearly , this is demotivating and , as it is 

 said by one of the guests invited by Ehab , ends up being a waste of time and 

 resources . Having this in mind , this semester I am taking another course about 

 entrepreneurship but , this time , it is different . In fact , it aims to give us the opportunity to 

 change our experiences from previous courses , by giving us a financial support in order to 

 help us build and develop our business ideas – among other initiatives held by the professors . 

 Luckily , I started taking this course at the same time I started learning about design thinking , 

 and it helped me see an immense opportunity of using many of the tools this course gave us . 

 Selection 

 As I said before , I want to combine the things I learnt during this course with the project I 

 am undertaking for my entrepreneurship course . I intend using almost every tool we learnt 

 because , as Ehab and her guests taught us , they all have a wide range of 

 applications and their impact on organizations is huge . Nevertheless , this reflection will be 

 centered on the use of the learning launch tool . As I have told you before , I have written some 

 business plans for the projects I have done and , as the guest I mentioned before told us , they 

 are characterized by having many assumptions for financial projections and they are n’t the 

 best approach because , when your assumptions do n’t reflect reality , you have to start pivoting 

 and changing some of them , which ends up taking a lot of time and resources from you . 

 Instead , learning launches let you place small bets in the marketplace and help you answer 

 questions without compromising too much . Keeping this in mind , I chose to use learning 

 launches for my project this semester and I will write my reflection about this . 

 Application 

 My story about applying the learning launch tool is interesting because it is currently 

 happening . For this week ’s class , my professor asked us ( my group and me ) , to think about 

 everyday problems and the way we could solve them in order to develop a business idea 

 around it . My group wanted that every student proposed two or three ideas so that the day 

 before the class we could vote and decide on which idea we would work . Instead of doing 

 this , I told them that we could do a different process that would help us get to a better 

 understanding of the question we are going to work on and of the ways we could solve the 

 problem we would choose . Therefore , I explained them a bit about the design thinking way 

 of proceeding and facing problems and I explained them particularly the learning launch 

 notion . I told them we needed to start by choosing a problem related with something 

 customers want , something we can do and something sustained by the economics and by the 

 budget our University gave us because , as you may know , the intersection of these three 

 conditions is the Wow Zone . Consequently , I asked my group to pick ideas directed to a 

 specific group of customers , who have a specific need , which is met by the idea they proposed 

 and to try to establish a proposal being better than current alternatives . When we met , each 

 one presented their ideas ( in the structure of napkin pitches ) and we chose together one of 

 the problems we proposed . Now , before making the fast and cheap experiments directly in 

 the marketplace , we are staying in the question for a moment , trying to understand it and 

 searching for higher ground , as we use design thinking as a collaboration tool and taking 

 advantage of the fact that each one of us studies a different career . 

 Insight & Approach 

 Through the use of the learning launch tool and the process it involves , our group got to 

 examine each of the ideas we proposed and choose the best one : an idea that can become a 

 real - life project and that will be destined to solve the customers ’ needs , from an empathetic 

 point of view . Moreover , it helped us face the situation from a different point of view , using 

 new tools and being a lot more creative . 

 The most important insight I gained from applying this tool and , mostly , from the whole 

 course is that it really opened my mind . When you are an engineer , without noticing it , you 

 can get used to see things from a statistic and mathematical point of view , leaving apart things 

 like creativity and flexibility and you tend to become like the personage Ehab 

 told us about in one of our sessions . This new year I have set one of my goals to be less 

 worried about uncertainty and to believe that if you put effort in what you do and have your 

 objectives clear , life will open the doors for you to get where you want to be . Therefore , I am 

 thrilled to keep directing my mind towards a growth mindset and I look forward to using the 

 other tools this course gave us and to keep learning with the other courses this specialization 

 offers ! 

 For next time , I would try to use another of the tools proposed because when you get to apply 

 the concepts you saw in class to a problem of yours , you really see its applications and the 

 advantages its use gives you . Design thinking is more than a set of tools and methodologies 

 for you to face problems . It ’s a different way of thinking and proceeding and it helps you 

 become a better person and a better professional , no matter your field of application . 

 References 

 Tena Ehab , her guests and the University of Virginia , Design Thinking for Innovation . 

 Available at Coursera . 


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 an Engineering student and I minor in Entrepreneurship . As I ’ve taken several classes 

 focusing on entrepreneurship , I ’ve had to deal with the classic idea generation process and 

 tools many times . I´ve had to write a lot of business plans , to draw or elaborate many 

 prototypes and to write some journey maps . The interesting thing about these processes is 

 that in none of them we ’ve come to a real - life project and it never passes the step of the 

 hypothetical calculations , statements and results . Clearly , this is demotivating and , as it is 

 said by one of the guests invited by Ehab , ends up being a waste of time and 

 resources . Having this in mind , this semester I am taking another course about 

 entrepreneurship but , this time , it is different . In fact , it aims to give us the opportunity to 

 change our experiences from previous courses , by giving us a financial support in order to 

 help us build and develop our business ideas – among other initiatives held by the professors . 

 Luckily , I started taking this course at the same time I started learning about design thinking , 

 and it helped me see an immense opportunity of using many of the tools this course gave us . 

 Selection 

 As I said before , I want to combine the things I learnt during this course with the project I 

 am undertaking for my entrepreneurship course . I intend using almost every tool we learnt 

 because , as Ehab and her guests taught us , they all have a wide range of 

 applications and their impact on organizations is huge . Nevertheless , this reflection will be 

 centered on the use of the learning launch tool . As I have told you before , I have written some 

 business plans for the projects I have done and , as the guest I mentioned before told us , they 

 are characterized by having many assumptions for financial projections and they are n’t the 

 best approach because , when your assumptions do n’t reflect reality , you have to start pivoting 

 and changing some of them , which ends up taking a lot of time and resources from you . 

 Instead , learning launches let you place small bets in the marketplace and help you answer 

 questions without compromising too much . Keeping this in mind , I chose to use learning 

 launches for my project this semester and I will write my reflection about this . 

 Application 

 My story about applying the learning launch tool is interesting because it is currently 

 happening . For this week ’s class , my professor asked us ( my group and me ) , to think about 

 everyday problems and the way we could solve them in order to develop a business idea 

 around it . My group wanted that every student proposed two or three ideas so that the day 

 before the class we could vote and decide on which idea we would work . Instead of doing 

 this , I told them that we could do a different process that would help us get to a better 

 understanding of the question we are going to work on and of the ways we could solve the 

 problem we would choose . Therefore , I explained them a bit about the design thinking way 

 of proceeding and facing problems and I explained them particularly the learning launch 

 notion . I told them we needed to start by choosing a problem related with something 

 customers want , something we can do and something sustained by the economics and by the 

 budget our University gave us because , as you may know , the intersection of these three 

 conditions is the Wow Zone . Consequently , I asked my group to pick ideas directed to a 

 specific group of customers , who have a specific need , which is met by the idea they proposed 

 and to try to establish a proposal being better than current alternatives . When we met , each 

 one presented their ideas ( in the structure of napkin pitches ) and we chose together one of 

 the problems we proposed . Now , before making the fast and cheap experiments directly in 

 the marketplace , we are staying in the question for a moment , trying to understand it and 

 searching for higher ground , as we use design thinking as a collaboration tool and taking 

 advantage of the fact that each one of us studies a different career . 

 Insight & Approach 

 Through the use of the learning launch tool and the process it involves , our group got to 

 examine each of the ideas we proposed and choose the best one : an idea that can become a 

 real - life project and that will be destined to solve the customers ’ needs , from an empathetic 

 point of view . Moreover , it helped us face the situation from a different point of view , using 

 new tools and being a lot more creative . 

 The most important insight I gained from applying this tool and , mostly , from the whole 

 course is that it really opened my mind . When you are an engineer , without noticing it , you 

 can get used to see things from a statistic and mathematical point of view , leaving apart things 

 like creativity and flexibility and you tend to become like the personage Ehab 

 told us about in one of our sessions . This new year I have set one of my goals to be less 

 worried about uncertainty and to believe that if you put effort in what you do and have your 

 objectives clear , life will open the doors for you to get where you want to be . Therefore , I am 

 thrilled to keep directing my mind towards a growth mindset and I look forward to using the 

 other tools this course gave us and to keep learning with the other courses this specialization 

 offers ! 

 For next time , I would try to use another of the tools proposed because when you get to apply 

 the concepts you saw in class to a problem of yours , you really see its applications and the 

 advantages its use gives you . Design thinking is more than a set of tools and methodologies 

 for you to face problems . It ’s a different way of thinking and proceeding and it helps you 

 become a better person and a better professional , no matter your field of application . 

 References 

 Tena Ehab , her guests and the University of Virginia , Design Thinking for Innovation . 

 Available at Coursera .
### Output: 