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Experimentation The Key To Discovery |
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By: Vadim Kotelnikov
Founder, Ten3 Business e-Coach Inspiration and Innovation Unlimited!
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"No amount of experimentation can ever prove me right; a single experiment can prove me wrong." Albert Einstein "The stream of truth flows through its channels of mistakes." |
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Experimentation Defined Experimentation means trying something new and unproven and acknowledging that you cannot reliably predict the outcome. Experimentation: The Key to Discovery Discovering what works requires that you understand the casual links between inputs and outputs. When it comes to searching for cause-effect relationships, perhaps the most suitable model that emerges is the method of experimentation that allows the most efficient scientific progress, the scientific method as a model for discovery.1 The process could begin with a brainstorming session, listing potential experimental activities.
Developing Tolerance for Mistakes The first time you swim, you don't jump in the deep end. Experimentation by definition is a trial-and-error process, and no one is going to be willing to undertake a trial if the risk associated with making an error is too great. A tolerance to mistakes inevitably associated with trying anything new and freedom-to-fail environment is the key to eventual success. Behind most great companies there is a long history of mistakes and failures.2 Hewlett-Packard had what must have seemed like an unending stream of product failures before finally selling a set of audio oscillators to a struggling young animator named Walt Disney to use on a harebrained movie entitled Fantasia. Sony's first product, a rice cooker, never worked properly, and its first major innovation, a tape recorder, was a complete flop in the market. (The company managed to survive its early years by stitching wires to cloth to make crude heating pads.) The first Wal-Mart store opened by Sam Walton, Wal-Mart's founder, ended nightmarishly, because of several bad business arrangements. Today, Wal-Mart is the strongest retailer in the world. Balanced Organization: 5 Basic Elements Empowered Employees (Metal):
The improvisation-driven model for innovation project management doesnt discard structure, just as there is a clear structure to good jazz. In innovation, this structure is created through roadmaps, guiding principles, business processes, systems and organizational charts. Strategic-planning and road-mapping processes cannot guarantee brilliant flashes of creative insight, but they can prepare minds and increase the odds that such flashes occur in real time. Thus structure, as chords do in jazz, serves as a basis for improvisation, experimentations, discoveries and innovation... More
Experimental Approach to Venture Management The entrepreneurial team should treat the new venture as a series of experiments. Before launching the whole show, launch a little piece of it. Convene a focus group to test the product, build a prototype and watch it perform, conduct a regional or local rollout of a service. Such an exercise reveals the true economics of the business and can help enormously in determining how much money the new venture actually requires and in what stages. "Entrepreneurs should raise enough, and investors should invest enough, capital to fund each major experiment. Experiments, of course, can feel expensive and risky. But they prevent disasters and help create successes. They are a prerequisite of putting together a winning venture financing deal," writes William A. Sahlman.10 Case Study Silicon Valley In the Silicon Valley, strategic alignment the process of linking innovation strategy with corporate vision, goals, objectives, and strategy results as much from tacit understandings as explicit ones. "And Valley leaders know that you'll never achieve perfect alignment without squelching creativity and experimentation. Organizational norms and entrepreneurial experience continuously reinforce the opportunism from which new discoveries and alignment can spring."1
Marketing Strategy: "Innovations had better be capable of being started small, requiring at first little money, few people, and only a small limited market." Peter Drucker... More
Testing an Experimental Business Model When pursuing entirely new business models, no amount of research can resolve the critical unknowns. All that strategy can do is give you a plausible starting point. From there, you must experiment, learn, and adapt... More
"Ready-Fire-Aim" is Better Than "Ready-Aim-Fire"... Turning Failures To Opportunities: 3 Steps... Evaluation of Hypothesis: Typical Learning Mistakes... Opportunities-driven Business Development... Discovering Opportunities... Pursuing Business Opportunities: Rapid Experimentation... Strategic Achievement... The Tao of Entrepreneurial Creativity... Innovation Process...
Loose-Tight
Leadership...
Case in Point IDEO... Case in Point Google... Case in Point InsBeCo... Case in Point Dell Inc.... Case in Point Discovery Center of Corning: Culture of Innovation...
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The Tao of Achievement
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