Imperial experiments session

Our values:
Start by starting.

Our values:
Stand shoulder-to-shoulder.

Our values:
Listen and co-create.

Our values:
Design with evidence.

Big thinking brought to life
1. Embracing uncertainty
2. Experiments vs. traditional research
3. Right experiment for the job

Experiments / Role in innovation
Why experiment?

We don’t want to build
products and services,
nobody wants
(answer 1)

Experiments / role in innovation
AS P O S
GU S UN T I Y

Anatomy of an idea
●
●
●
●

●
●
●
●
Exercise: unpack your idea

Your idea is wrong!
(answer 2)

But that’s OK - you can’t know everything

This canvas is a step-by-step way of bringing together
and revealing some of the key elements required to
bring a new idea to market.
What do I do?
• Start at the top and move through the diagram one
box at a time.
• Don’t worry about jumping around. If you get stuck
on one box, come back to it. Filling in the others
may help you find the answer.
What questions should I be asking?
• Keep asking “Why?” and “How?” For example,
instead of writing “Recruit staff”, consider why you
need staff.
Exercise: challenging assumptions

What do we mean
by experiment?

Experiments are the minimum effort required to
validate (or invalidate) your hypothesis

The experimental process
An experiment is any test that allows you to
validate or invalidate a specific hypothesis.
• Pose a hypothesis
• Build: determine the minimal thing to build to
validate your hypothesis; build it
• Measure: run the experiment and collect the
data
• Learn: Draw conclusions – did your data
match your hypothesis? Did you learn
something else? Do you persevere or pivot?
MVP
HYPOTHESIS
RUN
EXPERIM
ENT
DATA

Principles of a good experiment...
1. Real customers
Who don’t know they’re being
experimented on
2. Measurable
With an idea of what success
looks like
3. Minimal
The least effort required to test
your assumption

Why don’t we just ask
people?

Survey data vs. experiment data
The idea: give customers a
more personal relationship
by using data and
intelligence to anticipate
their needs and positively
affect their experience with
us, our products and
services.

What are we testing?

Test the assumption,
not the idea.

Testing a critical assumption
Reengineering a critical service in a highly
regulated environment.

Testing a critical assumption
Encouraging commuters to swap their cars for
public transport.

Lean startup experiment archetypes
What really matters to
customers?
What does the solution
need to do?
What ideas?
Does the solution
work?
Does it deliver the
benefits predicted?
How do customers
interact with it?
Is there interest?
Is there demand?
Will people sign up?
Will people pay for it?
Will people buy?
How do customers
react to the service?

Combining archetypes
A service that looks and feels real, testing what
customers most valued.

Take your most critical assumption from the
last canvas. Now work out how to test that
assumption in the smallest, simplest way.
What can you put in front of customers that
feels real enough to them to get an
accurate, honest reaction?
What questions should I be asking?
What’s my most critical assumption? How
will I measure it? How will we know if we’ve
validated or invalidated it?
Exercise: define an experiment

1. Embrace uncertainty
2. Experiments vs. traditional research
3. Pick the right experiment for the job

No such thing as a
bad idea.

No such thing as a
good idea,
until you prove it.

Imperial experiments session

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