Experimental Mind: selling organizational transformation

Hi everyone,

In this weekly newsletter I share the best experimentation related articles, jobs and events, that I have found during the week. You only have to grab a cup of coffee (or tea), sit down and read.

Last week I mentioned that I’m looking for guest curators to help create a newsletter around a specific topic, seen from their perspective. I’m already in contact with three people about topics like behavioral science, data literacy and product analytics. Let me know if you also would like to join. I am not asking for a huge time investment.

ps. it feels like 2022 has just started, but we are already 10% in.

🔎 What I’ve been reading last week

1. Experiments in tactical & strategic decision making

Yves Orton wrote this fine post on the application of experimentation in tactical and strategic decision making.

… Experimentation is a great way to assess your “least worst” tactical options as it allows a company to move quickly and validate many tactics cheaply and simultaneously. But its naivety makes it a poor tool for assisting strategic decision making which is all about assessing what the likely local maxima is on the current slope, and whether there is a different slope with higher local maxima.

2. Experimentation mindset for experimentation culture

Ruben de Boer shares ideas and tips on how to apply an experimental mindset in creating a culture of experimentation.

3. Selling organizational transformation

This week I came across this post by Stewart Butterfield, CEO and co-founder of Slack. It is a memo that was released internally in 2013 and it explains Slack’s vision on how to achieve product-market fit. They had to sell the innovation, not the product.

… Slack is a real and large innovation. It is not as eye-catching as self-driving cars or implantable chips — it is not basic research-y kind of stuff. But, for organizations that adopt it, there will be a dramatic shift in how time is spent, how communication happens, and how the team’s archives are utilized. There will be changes in how team members relate to one another and, hopefully, significant changes in productivity.

We are unlikely to be able to sell “a group chat system” very well: there are just not enough people shopping for group chat system (and, as pointed out elsewhere, our current fax machine works fine).

That’s why what we’re selling is organizational transformation.

Many experimenters are also in the business of (organizational) transformation. We are selling a different, better way of working. Lesson from this article: don’t sell the tool, sell the transformation.

🚀 Job opportunities

New opportunities keep opening up. Experimentation is a fascinating field to work in. Checkout the 37 open roles.

The latest featured roles:

WIth so many companies investing in experimentation capabilities and building teams, it’s a challenge to find the right people. Posting your open roles to the job board is a great way to get your amazing job in front of the right people. It also helps to support the Experimental Mind newsletter.

📅 Upcoming events

This is a running list of upcoming events:

See the full overview of events to find another 15+ events for experimenters.

💬 Quote of the week

“Most large organizations embrace the idea of invention, but are not willing to suffer the string of failed experiments necessary to get there.” — Jeff Bezos

😉 Fun of the week

Latest cartoon from Marketoonist on data-driven decision making:

🙏 Thanks for reading

Highlight of my week is receiving kind messages from people that enjoy reading this newsletter. If that is you, you can buy me a coffee or beer, simply use iDeal or Paypal (send it to ‘kevin@experimentalmind.com’). Thank you all.

Or share this newsletter with a friend or colleague (just like Luka and Siddhartha did). People can subscribe at getrevue.co/profile/kevinanderson

Have a great week — and keep experimenting.

Kevin

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