experimenting with ‘fun;’ ‘fun’ with experimenting what the (von) hayek do you think...

Experimenting with ‘Fun;’‘Fun’ With Experimenting

What the (Von) Hayek Do You Think You’re Doing?

The Content of the Audienceis more important thanThe Content of the Talk

This Talk is About….

An Effective/Affective Innovation Methodology

Emphasizing Competitive Experimental Designs

- 5X5 X-Teams

Not ‘Publish or Perish’ but…

“Demo or Die”

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‘Demo or Die’ Dynamism

- What else…?- Who else…?- How else…

- Why not…?

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I research/advise/explore…

‘Behavioral Economics’ of Experimentation & Innovation in

Organizations

Via their Models, Prototypes & Simulations

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Games

Noun & Verb

Design Competition

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Bruneschelli’s Dome 1419

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X-Prize

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ARDC 6.270

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DeKa’s FIRST

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What kind of…

Design Competition?

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Combining Affect & Effect

Lightweight;Heavy Impact;

“Fun”

My ‘Unit of Design/Competition’

From

‘Playing with Prototypes’ to

Proposing “Experiments Portfolios”

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Why ‘Experiments’?

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Customer Focus? A Failed 80/20/20

You will be the

CEO

You don’t have to be the CEO to be the

Chief

Experiments

Officer

The CEO’s Deliverable:

A Portfolio of Testable Business Hypotheses

that Matter!

A Hypothesis

• Frames a Challenge• An Organizing Principle for Convening ‘Teams’• Can Identify, Incorporate & Influence Adoption

Experiment

A Structured, Easily Replicable Process

to ‘Test a Hypothesis’

Designing The X-Teams

5X5

5X5 ‘X’-Teams

• 5 People/5 Days • 5 Experiments

• $5,000• 5 Weeks

•$5,000,000 [Growth or Savings]

X Teams: [Liberating Constraints]

• Cross-functional/Well-Regarded Talent• Hard Deadline/Defined Deliverable/No Budget

• Self-Managing • Present to Top Management

• Peer & Executive Review

The X-Format

• What’s the Perceived Problem/Issue/Opportunity?• Why does It matter?

• What’s the Business Hypothesis?• What Experiment(s) conform to the 5X5 criteria?

Make Compelling Business Hypotheses Simple &

Simple Business Hypotheses Compelling

Seek to Perform Simple Experiments Fast

Seek to Perform Fast Experiments Cheap

Seek Results That Speak for Themselves

“Fun-damental Value(s)”

Be “Warren Buffetts” of Experimentation

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ideology:

Do you experiment to extend your values or to challenge them?

The Design “Game”

Competing Hypotheses&

Competing Experiments&

Competing Portfolios&

Competing Presentations

SeatMaps Contiguous Seating N>2

Gedankenexperiment: What text, call or site should an in-store customer make?

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Amazon Recommendation Engine [Greg Linden]

I hacked up a prototype. On a test site, I modified the Amazon.com shopping cart page to recommend other items you might enjoy adding to your cart. Looked pretty good

to me. I started showing it around…

At this point, I was told I was forbidden to work on this any further. I was told Amazon was not ready to launch this feature. It should have stopped there. Instead, I

prepared the feature for an online test. I believed in shopping cart recommendations. I wanted to measure the sales impact….

5X5 X-teams

Lessons Learned

Because when we stop, it feels good…

Lessons Learned

Professional Development

The Most Influential and Product of Simple, Fast, Cheap and Compelling Experiments

Isn’t ‘The Results,’ It’s ‘The Experimenters’

5X5 X-teams

Crafting a ‘Good’ Business Hypothesis is Hard

(This surprised me…!)

5X5 X-teams

Articulating Their X-Portfolio Philosophy Proved Challenging

Lessons Learned

A Fantastic Window for Senior Leadership

5X5 X-teams

Portfolio ‘Gaps’ As Revealing as Portfolio Priorities

The X-Heuristic

If You Can’t Afford to Have ‘It’ Fail,‘It’ Isn’t an Experiment

What Experiments Aren’t:

Validation

Oxymoron Alert

PassionatelyDispassionate

X-Team Issues:

• ‘Single-Idea’ Zealots• Frustration Follow-up

• Top Management Challenged• ‘Put Up or Shut Up’ Upsets

• ‘Analysis’ Culture(s) Get Nervous

Lessons Learned/ Design vs Develop vs Deploy

50%

We’re not ‘smarter’ or ‘better’ but...

The reason why we are on a higher imaginative level is not because we have finer imaginations, but because we have

better instruments. In science, the most important thing that has happened over

the last forty years is the advance in instrumental design.

A.N. Whitehead

An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Natural Knowledge

Cambridge University Press 1925

in case of contact...

schrage@mit.edu

Innovation Economics

The “80/20/20 Vision”

How can we model/capture:

•80% of the “Necessary” Information in• 20% of the Time; and with

•20% of the Resources