Great Idea Going Nowhere Fast? Test and Learn to the Rescue!

You have a great idea and want to try something that you think will make life better—for you, your team, your family, or your customers. Maybe it’s a new framework or tool that you are so excited to bring back to your boss. Maybe it’s a different way to think about your team structure. Maybe you have a great idea of how to improve the customer experience for your most loyal customers. But then your idea is shot down by your boss, team, or coworkers—not because it isn’t a great idea, but because they don’t know for sure it will work. What’s the ROI? What if it fails? What will we do then? How much work will it be to implement? The barrier to change is just too high. This is where testing and learning comes into the picture. The lean “Build-Measure-Learn” framework, made popular by Eric Ries and the Lean Startup movement, can be applied to practically any scenario where you believe you can drive a better outcome tomorrow than you are today. Learn how to frame the problem you are trying to solve, prove (or disprove) there is a better way by building your hypothesis muscles, and use a test-and-learn approach to try out your idea in real life. The result will be actual data you can use to convince the powers that be that the juice is worth the squeeze.