John De Goes’ blog

Product teams play a crucial role in the success of any organization. They are responsible for designing, developing, and launching products that meet the needs and expectations of their customers. However, with so many variables to consider and limited resources, it can be challenging for product teams to make the right decisions that lead to impactful innovations. That’s where experimentation comes in. By running more experiments, product teams can gain valuable insights, make data-driven decisions, and ultimately drive innovation. In this article, we will explore the reasons why product teams should incorporate experimentation into their workflows and explore the benefits of this approach.

Setting Up Experiments for Success

Before diving into experimentation benefits, it’s worthwhile to lay the groundwork for a successful experiment. Setting clear objectives and hypotheses, aligning experiments to business goals, defining the right scope, and setting a controlled blast ratio are all crucial aspects of a successful experimentation process. Let’s look at each of these factors.

Defining clear objectives is the first step when planning an experiment. It helps to narrow down the focus and ensure that the experiment is aligned with broader business goals. Objectives should be specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). For example, an objective may be to increase user retention by 10% within two months.

After establishing clear objectives, the next step is to define solid hypotheses. A hypothesis is an educated guess about the impact of a particular change or feature on a specific outcome. It should be based on data and prior experience and should consider both the strengths and weaknesses of the suggested approach. For example, a hypothesis could be that implementing a new onboarding process will result in a higher number of users completing the onboarding flow.

Defining the right scope for an experiment is crucial to keeping it focused and actionable. The scope should be limited to the specific hypothesis being tested, rather than testing multiple things at once. By narrowing down the scope of an experiment, teams can conclude with greater certainty and gather more meaningful insights.

Setting a controlled blast ratio is another crucial aspect of experiments. It is essential to strike a balance between exposing enough users to gather statistically significant results. In addition, it is essential to ensure that the experiment doesn’t negatively impact existing features or the user experience. A 10:1 blast ratio is often recommended for web-based experiments.

Analyzing Experiment Results

Once the experiment is complete, the next step is to analyze the results and draw conclusions. Evaluating experiment performance goes beyond just looking at the raw data but requires careful consideration of metrics and statistical significance. By conducting a thorough analysis of experiment results, product teams can make informed decisions about what works and what doesn’t.

Understanding that, as long as you learn from an experiment, you don’t fail is crucial. Experimentation is used to discover relevant information, gain insights, and validate hypotheses. Even if an experiment doesn’t meet the desired outcome, it can often lead to unexpected findings that can be used in future iterations. Therefore, it is critical to celebrate the learnings from each experiment and keep moving forward.

Putting Experiment Results into Action

Experimentation is not only about conducting experiments but also putting the results into action. Taking insights from experiments and incorporating them into product decisions is crucial for driving continuous innovation and improvement.

Making informed decisions based on experiment results requires a deep understanding of your customers, the market, and the product itself. Product teams should evaluate the experimental results in the context of the overall product roadmap and make informed decisions that align with user needs, business objectives, and strategic goals.

Furthermore, scaling successful experiments is another important aspect of putting results into action. Once an experiment demonstrates a positive impact, product teams should prioritize scaling it to maximize its impact. This involves replicating the experiment on a larger scale or integrating it directly into the product. By scaling successful experiments, product teams can accelerate innovation and deliver more value to their customers.

In conclusion, experimentation should be an integral part of any product development lifecycle. By incorporating experimentation, product teams can uncover valuable insights, make data-driven decisions, and drive innovation. By defining clear objectives, designing thoughtful experiments, analyzing results, and taking action based on those results, product teams can optimize their processes, improve the user experience, and ultimately lead to success.