So, you’ve got a promising big idea that you want to test in small way?
Maybe you’re thinking about adopting a new process in your organization and you want to pilot it on one team to start. Maybe you’re considering an exciting new capability in a business-critical software system and you want to start by ensuring it works on a subset of cases.
Great! A focused probe is the right move for big, complex things. Even if you’re really confident about your idea, making a big plan and executing it is risky and takes a long time to show value.
The most powerful pattern for finding a small probe of a big idea is to narrow down all the variations to just one. Many departments? Pick one. Many teams in each department? Pick one. Many business rule variations? Many target customers? Many stores? You get the idea.
The trick is picking the right one.
Whichever one you pick, there will be trade-offs. Having seen those trade-offs play out over hundreds of examples, we’ve found a simple way to make the right choice in a given situation.
Any time you need to choose one of many to start with, you really have three choices. And each of those can be right for different circumstances.
Option #1: Start with the easy one
Option #1 is the pilot team that’s most set up for success. The workflow path that’s easiest to build. The business rule variation that’s most straightforward.
There are two reasons to consider this option.
First, this option works well when you need to build a little support for investing more. It’s the path to a quick win. But like we’ve written about before [tk link to quick wins article: https://www.humanizingwork.com/problem-with-quick-wins/], quick wins often avoid the complex and interesting parts of a problem. Only use this approach when any visible progress will do.
The second—and better—reason to choose this option is when you want fast falsification of a hypothesis. If your approach doesn’t work for the easy option, where it’s most set up for success, it’s not likely to work anywhere, and you can stop investing right away.
Option #2: Start with a typical one
Option #2 is about finding a representative example. If this pilot team succeeds, the majority of our teams will succeed. Implementing this business rule variation or workflow path handles the most common cases.
Choose this option when you’re less concerned about edge cases, when having something work most of the time represents a big win, even if some cases could be a struggle later.
Option #3: Start with the hard one
Finally, option #3 is about starting with the most challenging example. It’s the pilot team in the most difficult situation. The trickiest business rule variation. The customer segment with the most unique requirements.
Start here to generate the strongest proof of your idea. Once you’ve handled the hardest case, everything else should be easier. You’ve pressure tested the overall idea.
Avoid this option if an early failure would be catastrophic rather than informative.
Also avoid this option if you don’t believe the hypothesis behind the work is true. Starting with the hard case can feel like a strawman of the overall idea. Your argument against the idea is stronger if you give it a fighting chance with the first probe. That suggests an easy or representative example.
You can layer the options
We’re often slicing an idea along multiple dimensions. When choosing a pilot team for example, you might be selecting based on the type of work the team does, what department it’s in, the size of the initiative they’re working on, the amount of dependencies they have, and more. On each dimension, you have these same three choices. You might choose the hard example (option #3) on one dimension and the easy example on another (option #1). That’s fine. Just be sure you understand why you’re making the choice you make.
What’s the next option for you?
What does this make more clear for you? Do you always choose the same type of option? Do you find yourself just going with whatever’s available or top of mind? How might your results be different if you made a different choice?
Got a high-stakes big idea you need help slicing and designing a probe for? We can help you get the outcomes you want. Let’s talk. Schedule a time to connect with us here.
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