Book description
Don't fly blind. See how the power of experiments works for you.
When it comes to improving customer experiences, trying out new business models, or developing new products, even the most experienced managers often get it wrong. They discover that intuition, experience, and big data alone don't work. What does? Running disciplined business experiments. And what if companies roll out new products or introduce new customer experiences without running these experiments? They fly blind.
That's what Harvard Business School professor Stefan Thomke shows in this rigorously researched and eye-opening book. It guides you through best practices in business experimentation, illustrates how these practices work at leading companies, and answers some fundamental questions: What makes a good experiment? How do you test in online and brick-and-mortar businesses? In B2B and B2C? How do you build an experimentation culture? Also, best practice means running many experiments. Indeed, some hugely successful companies, such as Amazon, Booking.com, and Microsoft, run tens of thousands of controlled experiments annually, engaging millions of users. Thomke shows us how these and many other organizations prove that experimentation provides significant competitive advantage.
How can managers create this capability at their own companies? Essential is developing an experimentation organization that prizes the science of testing and puts the discipline of experimentation at the center of its innovation process. While it once took companies years to develop the tools for such large-scale experiments, advances in technology have put these tools at the fingertips of almost any business professional. By combining the power of software and the rigor of controlled experiments, today's managers can make better decisions, create magical customer experiences, and generate big financial returns.
Experimentation Works is your guidebook to a truly new way of thinking and innovating.
Table of contents
- Cover
- Series List
- Title Page
- Copyright
- Dedication
- Contents
- Preface: A Tribute to the Scientific Method
- Introduction: The Business Experimentation Imperative
- 1. Why Experimentation Works
- 2. What Makes a Good Business Experiment?
- 3. How to Experiment Online
- 4. Can Your Culture Handle Large-Scale Experimentation?
- 5. Inside an Experimentation Organization
- 6. Becoming an Experimentation Organization
- 7. Seven Myths of Business Experimentation
- Epilogue: A Brief Look at the Future
- Notes
- Selected Bibliography
- Index
- Acknowledgments
- About the Author
Product information
- Title: Experimentation Works
- Author(s):
- Release date: February 2020
- Publisher(s): Harvard Business Review Press
- ISBN: 9781633697119
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