Many years ago I attended a preview showing of ‘We Will Rock You’ musical in London’s West End.  It was a great evening even though halfway through the production there was a technical hitch and a pause for around 15 minutes before restarting.  No-one minded, we knew it was a Preview event and the tickets were cheaper for that very reason. 

For the show’s producers, these previews were a great way to iron out any technical and performance issues after months of rehearsals.  It paid off as the musical went on to run for 14 years and has recently celebrated 20 years with a UK tour delighting new audiences. 

The entertainment industry has had structured Preview approach to launches for many years to test their productions in front of a live audience.  The same principles apply to any industry as a Pilot is essentially the final dress rehearsal to check key processes and systems will deliver as expected ahead of the full launch.  For example:

• Checking a new website has all the web pages and links working as expected in live by selected customers.

• Checking selected end customers can navigate a new proposition as expected before launching to all customers.

Ultimately every company and Project is different so every Pilot will also differ but there are common points to consider:

• Decide your end target audience (internal, external or both) and who needs to be involved in the Pilot phase early on. Ideally this group needs to be a mix of adopters, not just those who are willing and able, but those less technically minded, as both groups will provide valuable feedback.
• Decide the Pilot approach, for example, a ‘soft launch’ where a new service is implemented in live, but there is no active marketing for an agreed period of time.  Alternatively, this might be access to just a limited part of the service for the initial live phase, or only made live to a select group.
• Decide on the training approach as this may automatically shape the Pilot and final launch. Simply training the first group further in advance often works well for internal Projects so the users can trial systems and propositions before training everyone else.
• Decide how long the Pilot needs to run – whether this is 2 days, 2 weeks or 2 months, or a series of phases, the timings can be tailored to fit your requirements and the number of people involved.

Ultimately everyone wants their launch to be as successful as possible so the value of a Pilot can never be underestimated to iron out any wrinkles. This is illustrated really well by Quantas who piloted their non-stop service to Sydney a couple of years ago as shown in this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl5FHmL_6rE.  The airline trialled all aspects of the new service with just 50 customers after initial test flights, including how to combat jet lag after 20 hours of flying, ahead of fully launching the new service.

Planning at the start of any Project automatically triggers discussions about the launch and the majority of our clients choose to launch with a Pilot to manage the final implementation.  Pilot examples include setting up a new business with a single client before starting full advertising, phasing office moves to manage a key change for the business and piloting new systems and processes both internally and externally.  It might mean a phased launch approach, but ultimately a Pilot gives confidence and a quality check, increasing success rates for the full launch and the longer term.

Helen runs operational and change management projects to support growing and / or changing businesses, tailored to requirements.  For more information please contact [email protected].