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Experiment more often and more cheaply

“The next big opportunity never looks that way at the outset. Big opportunities grow out of successive rounds of experimentation.”

To evolve more rapidly, organizations must experiment more frequently. Management processes that seek to arrive at the “one best strategy” through top-down, analytical methods must give way to models based on the biological principles of variety (generate lots of options), selection (find low-cost ways to test critical assumptions), and retention (ramp up spending once a strategy has started to gain traction). In the future, top management won’t “make” strategy but will create an environment in which there is lots of fast-paced, strategic experimentation.

42 Stories
62 Hacks
5 Barriers

Experiment more often and more cheaply

“The next big opportunity never looks that way at the outset. Big opportunities grow out of successive rounds of experimentation.”

To evolve more rapidly, organizations must experiment more frequently. Management processes that seek to arrive at the “one best strategy” through top-down, analytical methods must give way to models based on the biological principles of variety (generate lots of options), selection (find low-cost ways to test critical assumptions), and retention (ramp up spending once a strategy has started to gain traction). In the future, top management won’t “make” strategy but will create an environment in which there is lots of fast-paced, strategic experimentation.

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Optimization, with its Lean Sig Sigma standard-bearer, has always been the objective of management for the industrial era, designed to control variability and increase productivity.In the information
Barrier by Ben Biddle on May 10, 2012
The process for resource allocation in too many organizations is highly centralized, creating a monopsony for new ideas within an organization, and favoring investment in projects that represent incre
Barrier by Gary Hamel on April 8, 2010
We know the lessons of Edison's light bulb.  He had to fail so many times to get to what would work.  We tell our kids to "fail and try again".  But in our organizations, we hate failur
Barrier by Howard C. Park on May 20, 2010
The Board members are risk averse in promoting radical changes from past behaviour.
Barrier by Ravinder K on June 4, 2010
Thinking about obstacles we meet in achieving the impossible dream as barriers is itself a barrier, we need to reframe to see them as ramps into NEW territory, to focus on what works and look for the
Barrier by Martin Hazell on June 2, 2010