The Assumption Trap: Essential Tips to Sidestep Costly Mistakes in Innovation

Alfred Nobel was a Swedish chemist, engineer, and inventor with hundreds of patents, most of which were for explosives. In 1888, Alfred’s brother died in France, and a French newspaper mistakenly got Alfred and his brother mixed up, publishing an obituary for Alfred with the headline “Merchant of Death” due to his invention of dynamite.

This unexpected glimpse into the future affected Alfred deeply, causing him to reflect on his legacy and how he would be remembered after his death. Alfred decided to rewrite his will, directing that most of his fortune should go to establishing the Nobel Prize. He wanted the prizes to recognize outstanding contributions to humanity in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature, and peace. The will was signed in 1895, just one year before his death.

Today, the Nobel Prizes are considered among the most prestigious awards in their respective fields and continue to honour individuals who make significant contributions to humanity.

Recap

Over the past few weeks, we’ve embarked on a journey to explore the world of experimentation. We’ve delved into its definition, importance, and application in innovation and employee experience. Before we shed our lab coats and hang up our goggles, it makes sense to do a quick wrap-up on the past posts before we move on to the final post of the series.

Experimentation 101: This is where it all started—a brief exploration of what experimentation means in the context of employee experience (EX) and innovation. We learned that experimentation is a method to validate or reject a set of hypotheses and assumptions, or to discover something new. It’s a tool we use every day, often without realizing it. We also discussed the importance of having the right mindset and behaviours to foster a culture of experimentation within an organization.

The Assumption Trap: In our second post, we zoomed in on the dangers of making assumptions. We learned that unchecked assumptions can lead to costly mistakes and missed opportunities. To avoid this, we introduced the Crosshair Challenger, a tool to help identify and prioritize assumptions for validation through experimentation.

Bat Bombs, Fight Club, and Samuel L. Jackson: In our most recent post, we used some mental shortcuts to illustrate the principles of experimentation. We learned the importance of keeping experiments simple, adaptable, and motivating (SAM). We also discussed the rules of Fight Club when it comes to experimentation.

Today, I want to bring it all to life by sharing a simple process that you can return to time and time again. In the final post of the series, I will share a simple five-step process for building a chain of custody. Let’s go!

The Five Simple Steps to Experimentation

You now have the depth of details from the previous posts; it’s time we zoom out from the detail and put it all into a high-level process flow. One that consists of just five simple steps:

Step 1: Identifying Assumptions

It always starts in the land of assumptions. These assumptions are the untested beliefs and hunches we hold about our projects, products, services, experiences, or ideas.

They’re like the invisible things you do without knowing, like how I am typing with my mouth open without knowing (maybe you are reading this doing the same). These assumptions are little voices in the background of our minds trying to influence our thinking, decision-making, and actions. They can be pesky little devils, leading us astray if left unchecked. This is why we should expose them to light. It’s time to whip out the Crosshair Challenger and start identifying any assumptions we might have, categorizing them based on factors such as proof and impact. This will help identify which assumptions to tackle first.

Step 2: Crafting Experiment Cards

Now that we’ve identified our assumptions, it’s time to design some experiments (time to don the lab coat again). Here is a preference thing: I like to use a template like the experiment card below. Do whatever works for you as a team. Whichever way you decide to capture and cement the experiment, there is a pretty clear blueprint of what each experiment should outline:

• Assumption: What belief are you testing? What is your assumption?

• Hypothesis: What do you expect will happen when you run the experiment?

• Method: Describe how you will run the test. What type of experiment are you running in detail?

• Who: Here you would put details on the audience of your experiment.

• Metrics: How will you measure the results? Try to avoid words like “success”; it’s about learning.

• Planner: Here is a bit of a planner around the steps to set up the experiment.

I suggest once your experiment card is written, get someone in to play a critical friend on the experiment and test if the experiment meets the SAM criteria and Fight Club rules. If it doesn’t, maybe you have over-engineered the experiment. Of course, this is contextual to the challenge, depending on if you are using it to create a new venture versus testing a new people's product.

Step 3: Creating a Chain of Custody

Once your experiment cards are ready to go, it’s time to add some rigour to the tracking of your experiments. Once they go live, it can be hard to keep track of who, how, and where they are happening in your organization, especially if you’re running more than one.

In the past, I have set this up in many ways depending on organizational maturity. Sometimes it’s been a simple Excel sheet, other times a Kanban board. The honest answer is it can be whatever you want it to be, as long as it’s a central repository where all experiments in the organization can be tracked and moved. Remember, this is a live document or hub that will be updated regularly with all the basics of who did what and when, with timestamps. It should show the progression of the experiment from the start dates, and the phase of the experiment, as well as end dates, learning, and next steps. This part of experimentation is the one I notice always gets forgotten. Maintaining a chain of custody for our experiments allows us to have a complete record of the process while also providing transparency, accountability, and an easy way to demonstrate the value to our stakeholders.

Step 4: Running the Experiment

Now comes the fun part—running the experiment, which puts everything into action. Remember, when running the experiments, the goal isn’t to show you’re right. The goal is to show you’re learning, so stay open and honest throughout. Be ready for any unexpected results and lean into what you may learn from them. It is worth adding some key touch points into the experiment where you will get together and discuss the learning to date, and decide if the experiment needs to continue or needs adjusting.

Step 5: Learning Card Post-Experiment

After running the experiment, it’s crucial to document what you’ve learned. The learning card captures key insights, outcomes, and any new questions that arose during the experiment. It helps in maintaining a repository of knowledge that can be referenced for future experiments, avoiding redundant efforts and leveraging past learnings to inform new initiatives.

The Rub

Having a consistent process like the simple steps above helps explain how it works for new team members, as well as explain which stage the experiments are in, i.e., Identifying, Designing, Testing, and Learning.

It’s important not to throw away the experiment and learning insights. Instead, having them stored in your research repository will allow future experimenters to look at any new insights and identify potential variables in the experiments. This approach ensures continuous improvement and fosters a culture of informed experimentation within the organization.