Seize the power

Many organisations fail to deploy the full potential of experiments owing to misconceptions.

- STEFAN THOMKE, AUTHOR, EXPERIMENTATION WORKS

A company’s ability to create and refine its products, customer experiences, processes, and business models—in other words, to compete—is deeply affected by its ability to experiment. Digital giants such as Amazon, Facebook, Google, and Booking.com have found large-scaling experimentation to be a game changer when it comes to marketing and innovation. Experiments have helped Microsoft’s Bing unit, for instance, make dozens of monthly improvements, which collectively have boosted revenue per search by 10 per cent to 25 per cent a year. Firms without digital roots— including FedEx, State Farm, and Kohl’s—have also embraced testing, using it to identify the best digital touchpoints, design choices, discounts, and product recommendations.

But I have found that many organisations are making slow progress at deploying the power of experimentation because of some commonly held misconceptions that are holding them back. The misconceptions need to be understood, addressed, and then set aside. Here are six myths that I have come across.

Experimentation-driven innovation will kill intuition and judgment A few years ago, I gave a presentation on business experimentation to a large audience of executives and entrepreneurs. The audience was intrigued until one participant, the founder and CEO of a national restaurant chain, energetically voiced his opposition to subjecting his employees’ ideas to rigorous tests. He strongly believed that innovation is about creativity, confidence, and vision and, in a loud voice, proclaimed: “Steve Jobs didn’t test any of his ideas.” His message was unambiguous: a greater focus on experiments will backfire, put great ideas at risk of being prematurely dismissed, and will ultimately kill intuition and judgment.