Create an experimentation culture
Create an experimentation culture
1. Demonstrate the value of experimentation to inspire the experimentation mindset.
Create a case study demonstrating the success of experimentation. You can demonstrate the success of a small experiment that you run in the company, or if this is not available you can find examples in the external companies. Share the case study with the stakeholders. Use company meetings like, all hands, to stress the value of experimentation.
2. Find experimentation champions in different teams or area of the company.
Identify people in different teams or units that can execute the experiments. For example front end developers, UX designers, marketing managers, web analysts, and product owners. Set up a meeting series where all the representatives can discuss the results of past experiments and inspire each other. Encourage involvement and ask the members of the group to present their learning during the meeting.
3. Document the experiments and the learnings that you have gathered.
Create an experimentation space, like on the internal company website, where various resources related to the experiments’ topic can be accessed by everyone in the company. Create an experiments backlog. Document, experiment name, hypothesis, estimated impact, priority, experiment result, and follow up tasks.
4. Choose the right metrics and tools.
For website experimentation you can consider web analytics tools like Google Analytics, A/B testing tools like Optimizely, or heatmap or session recording tools like CrazyEgg or Mouseflow). Decide the metrics that you want to track in your experiments. Choose both secondary and primary metrics to get a deeper understanding of the experiment. For example, in a landing page experiment, ecommerce conversion rate can be the primary metric, while the click-through-rate to cart can be the secondary metric.
5. Create an experimentation backlog and meeting rituals to develop and maintain it.
Schedule regular brainstorming sessions to come up with new experiment ideas and prioritize them based on the required effort and estimated impact. Create a backlog with all your experiment ideas. This can be a table with experiment name, hypothesis, estimated impact, priority, experiment result and follow up tasks. Schedule regular meetings to review and update the backlog.
6. Celebrate the winning experiment and learn from the ones that have failed.
Demonstrate the experiment results to the company through company meetings, e-mails or publications in the intranet. Accept and encourage failure, and treat failed experiments as learnings for future experiments.