Decision Making: Reiterating Before Implementing

 Taking action is a critical aspect of innovation. We often think of introducing new ideas when we consider innovation, yet without action all the ideas fall flat and never emerge as true innovation. 

"Creativity is thinking up new things. Innovation is doing new things." ~Theodore Levitt

When you’ve built a good list of ideas, narrowed it down to the one most likely to succeed and generated support for the idea the next logical step is to test it out. Conducting an experiment is not the end of the process. It’s just a “little bet” so you can evaluate a micro move and make adjustments before you invest in your “big bet”. Your first experiment will likely have several potential outcomes. Let’s look at each to help you figure out your next iteration.

What if the test flops?

It doesn’t have to work the way it was intended to be successful. The secret to an experiment is that it’s an opportunity to observe and learn. Fight the urge to do it right the first time and instead head into the experiment with a learning mindset. Get excited and generate anticipation with your team about what you will learn. 

One iteration is likely not enough to know if your idea will work or not. So, learn from the first run and conduct a second experiment to see if you can adjust the plan. There’s likely a time where you may have to cut bait and move on. Typically not after the first “flop”.

What if you find something unanticipated?

Sometimes an experiment will surprise you. You will find out something about your idea that you totally didn’t expect. When that happens it’s okay to pause and reevaluate if the idea is the right move or if you need to go back to the drawing board. 

However, don’t be too quick to chuck the idea. Instead notice what the unexpected reveals about your idea. You may want to run the experiment again to see if you get different results. You could re-work the idea because you prefer the unanticipated outcome. Or, tweak the experiment to see if you can manage around the unexpected if it’s not what you were hoping to achieve.

What if it meets expectations?

When that experiment goes exactly as planned you can move on to the next step, or you take one more review of the idea based on your experiment and decide:

• What will you keep doing as you move to implementation?
• What will you do differently to more accurately or efficiently achieve your goal?
• What is unnecessary that you would not push into implementation? 

Just because an experiment accomplishes what you expected, doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement. Stepping back and asking these questions gives you a chance to fine tune something that’s already going well. 

“Ideas must be put to the test. That's why we make things, otherwise they would be no more than ideas. There is often a huge difference between an idea and its realization. I've had what I thought were great ideas that just didn't work” ~Andy Goldsworthy

Next Steps

Once you’ve finished your initial experiment and made changes along the way based on your outcomes, the next step is to move forward with implementing the idea. We’ll dive into that in the next blog. What questions do you ask yourself or your team to determine how well something is working (or not)? How do you keep the project momentum going when there are bumps in the road? Comment below. I’d love to hear your thoughts.