Run experiments to address complex challenges, so that you learn how to move closer to where you want to be.

Essential patterns to help you achieve this:

  • Describe Organizational Drivers – Building a shared mental model of the situation you want to address is essential for successfully designing, running, and later on evaluating experiments.
  • Determine Requirements – CClarifying the requirement, including the anticipated impact of fulfilling that requirement, is a prerequisite for designing the experiment, and for determining metrics for success.
  • Clarify Intended Outcome – A clear description of the intended outcome of an experiment is essential for understanding whether or not an experiment produced the intended result.
  • Evaluation Criteria – Defining clear criteria for determining success before the start of an experiment, helps to reveal flaws in its design and supports effective evaluation of outcomes.
  • Consent Decision-Making – An effective group process for viewing a proposition from a diversity of perspectives, and for testing whether or not an experiment is good enough and safe enough to run.
  • Evaluate and Evolve Agreements – An experiment needs to be regularly reviewed to determine what outcomes it achieves, and, as a consequence, potentially adapted, or even stopped.
  • Limit Work in Progress – Limit the number of concurrent experiments to avoid overwhelm and maintain a steady flow of value.
  • Create A Pull-System for Organizational Change – Inviting and enabling people to run experiments when they discover organizational requirements supports an effective and decentralized approach to organizational development.