Development

Experimental Framework

The mantra be­hind this Way of Working is to dis­cover new bound­aries. In or­der to con­stantly im­prove a process, there needs to be a frame­work to ideate, ex­per­i­ment and doc­u­ment bet­ter ways of work­ing. The ex­per­i­men­tal frame­work pro­vides that.

Within a pro­ject and across mul­ti­ple pro­jects, there are too many mov­ing parts for a sin­gle per­son to be across. Instead, the ex­per­i­men­tal frame­work en­cour­ages that every­one par­tic­i­pates in process im­prove­ments. If the re­sults of an ex­per­i­ment are pos­i­tive and ap­proved by the ap­pro­pri­ate stake­hold­ers, it be­comes a part of this Way of Working. To en­sure the best pos­si­ble fit, it is rec­om­mended that you make your own adap­ta­tions to this Way of Working us­ing the ex­per­i­men­tal frame­work.

Broadly speak­ing, the ex­per­i­men­tal frame­work is com­prised of five steps.

1. Identify area of im­prove­ment

   The first stage of an ex­per­i­ment is to iden­tify the need to con­duct one, and then clearly ex­plain what the prob­lem is. Useful ques­tions which can as­sist in this process are:

   • Where did the prob­lem oc­cur?
   • When did the prob­lem oc­cur?
   • What process did the prob­lem in­volve?
   • How is the prob­lem mea­sured?
   • How much is the prob­lem cost­ing?

2. Analyse cur­rent meth­ods

   To find the best so­lu­tion, the cause of the prob­lem must first be iden­ti­fied. The root cause can be found through analysing the his­tor­i­cal data and speak­ing with peo­ple this prob­lem has af­fected.

   
   

   Start by doc­u­ment­ing the cur­rent meth­ods and the is­sues that arise. It’s im­por­tant to doc­u­ment con­stantly and thor­oughly as you progress through an ex­per­i­ment.

3. Generate ideas or im­prove­ments

   The next step is to iden­tify po­ten­tial so­lu­tions. Brainstorming is an im­por­tant part of this step, as it helps con­ceive of a range of so­lu­tions. For each idea, es­tab­lish how it will help solve the prob­lem and any po­ten­tial pros and cons.

4. Develop an Implementation Plan

   After a range of so­lu­tions have been iden­ti­fied, choose the most promis­ing one to ex­per­i­ment with. The next step is to cre­ate a strat­egy to im­ple­ment the so­lu­tion. The fol­low­ing points should be an­swered in the Implementation Plan:

   • Who is in charge of the ex­per­i­ment?
   • Who is in­volved in the ex­per­i­ment?
   • What is the du­ra­tion of the ex­per­i­ment?
   • How are we im­ple­ment­ing the ex­per­i­ment?
   • How to track or mea­sure the ex­per­i­ment (in money, time, cus­tomer sat­is­fac­tion, or an­other crit­i­cal met­ric)?

5. Evaluate the ex­per­i­ment

   Once the Implementation Plan has ended, the find­ings of the ex­per­i­ment are dis­cussed amongst the stake­hold­ers. They will then de­ter­mine whether the ex­per­i­ment achieved the mea­sur­able goals and if it could be con­sid­ered a suc­cess. If the method failed, it should be iden­ti­fied why and whether a new ex­per­i­ment should be con­ducted.

   
   

   If the ex­per­i­ment suc­ceeded, then the strat­egy should be pro­posed to man­age­ment, who along­side the ex­per­i­ment stake­hold­ers, will de­ter­mine if the strat­egy is both ben­e­fi­cial and ap­plic­a­ble across the pro­ject or the com­pany as a whole. If the method is ap­proved, it be­comes a part of the Way of Working.