Experiment Small First

We work in “experiments” all the time with our customers, asking them to identify simple, cheap, fast, and easy things they can try to improve processes, increase communication, etc.

However, it isn’t always easy for people accustomed to working in large organizations to think small enough, so they regularly propose much larger experiments than necessary.

A few weeks ago, we shared a simple framework that has helped to shrink our customers’ experiments to just the right size.

Here’s how we describe experiments now:

An experiment is smaller than a pilot which is smaller than a project which is smaller than an initiative.

The moment we shared this hierarchy, everyone began thinking about experiments as we’d hoped they always would, and they leave with actionable steps they can take as soon as their meeting’s done.