March–April 2013
Article
European Business Review

Unlocking Innovation Through Business Experimentation

Format:Print

Abstract

There is a downside to businesses that focus heavily on standardization, optimization, and driving out variability: Such organizations leave themselves vulnerable to underinvesting in experimentation and variation, which are the lifeblood of innovation. Good experimentation helps firms better manage myriad sources of uncertainty (such as, does the product work as intended and does it address actual customer needs?) when past experience can be limiting. And it is only through such experimentation, which might include structured cause-and-effect tests, informal trial-and-error experiments, and rigorous randomized field trials, that companies can unlock their true capacity for innovation.