Steve Neiderhauser

Principles of Selecting a Business Experiment

David Bland shares his ideas on selecting business experiments.

Product people often make the mistake of building a product without validating the idea. So I like principle number four. 

No 4. Reduce certainty as much as you can before you build anything. Defer your build as long as possible, because it is often the most expensive way to learn.

Accelerated Learning

I’ve created learning systems at several companies that accelerated the ability to learn. Here’s some key points:

Teach concepts not details - When you learn a concept you can generalize from one environment to another and also attach details to the concept.

Parallel Structures - Use technology that has a structure similar to the organization. For example, a wiki is a flat organic knowledge structure that parallels a Scrum team. This approach limits friction and increases adoption rates.

Create a platform to run experiments - For example, the platform could be a way to rapidly test business ideas. After learning the theory or concept, people develop deep knowledge by running an easy-to-fail experiment and, through experience, ingrain their knowledge.

Leverage Communities of Practice and the principles that make them work.

12 Organizational Design Principles

Toby Sinclair does a masterful job of providing a brief and simple overview of 12 organization principles.

Don’t get me wrong, when I say simple, I mean it in a good way. Like simple designs are the best designs, even in written works. Because simplicity allows us to rapidly absorb the information.

This article teaches what org design traps to avoid, while sharing the principles for org design.