In a recent conversation, a colleague said, “That experiment did not succeed.” That is, the outcome was not what we wanted.
But that’s still a successful experiment. Because the experiment offered learning. The results told us where our thinking was not correct. This particular experiment did not tell us what was wrong, only that our thinking was wrong. But that allows us to create a new hypothesis and continue learning from another experiment.
That’s the point of experiments. We learn from them. Sometimes, what we learn reinforces our current direction. In my case—and maybe in yours—what we learn requires replanning and a new direction. Then there’s the most frustrating case, where we have ideas but do not yet have the technology or knowledge to even start the work.
But an experiment is much less costly and offers far faster feedback than choosing a direction and making a too-long plan. That’s true at all levels of experiments and decisions: for each team, each product, and the portfolio.
What is your hypothesis? How fast can you create an experiment and see the results? What did you learn? Use experiments to clarify your hypothesis and learn as fast as possible.
Experiments offer us data that we can learn from. That’s how they can make us successful.
More Reading
Here’s a recent blog post you might like: How We Can Move from Product Certainty to Future Experiments and Options. Yes, I’ll be writing more about this in the Continual Planning book.
See these books for much more:
- Practical Ways to Lead an Innovative Organization has suggestions for how managers can instill experimental thinking as part of the culture.
- Project Lifecycles: How to Reduce Risks, Release Successful Products, and Increase Agility discusses how to use experiments in the various feedback lifecycles.
- Create Your Successful Agile Project: Collaborate, Measure, Estimate, Deliver
This is one of the intermittent “management minute” posts.