Official · Product & strategy · intermediate
Test a neighborhood tool library
Choose a useful first service before spending a small team’s budget on an app.
The question
A community center wants neighbors to borrow occasional-use hand tools. Decide who a first pilot should serve, what problem it should solve and how to learn whether to continue. A phone process or a simple ledger may be enough; justify the approach you choose.
- The center has 18 hand tools and 200 interested residents; interest is not evidence of actual borrowing.
- A six-week pilot has a $1,200 budget and six staff-hours each week. Tools are collected in person.
- Some residents do not use smartphones. Staff worry that late returns will spoil another person’s booking.
What to cover
Choose a first group to serve, describe its current workaround and identify one assumption you need to test.
Explain the offer, borrowing/return journey, what you leave out and how staff will deliver it.
Propose a small discovery activity and a pilot measure with a threshold or decision rule; include a counter-signal that would stop expansion.
Break down budget and staff time, then walk through a late return. Compare one simpler or broader alternative.
How your practice is reviewed
- Problem and assumptions (25 points): Connects a chosen group to a concrete need and distinguishes evidence from assumptions.
- Useful and feasible scope (30 points): The pilot delivers a clear outcome within the budget, staff time and phone-access constraint.
- Decision-quality learning (30 points): Evidence and measures can support a continue, change or stop decision rather than just count interest.
- Exceptions and choices (15 points): Handles a late return and explains the cost or benefit of a credible alternative.
Discuss & learn
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