Prototype, Test, Fail & Iterate

Too often, business leaders agonize about major decisions. It becomes daunting. You don’t know where or how to begin. What if you get it wrong? Analysis paralysis sets in.

To make better decisions with confidence and conviction, take a cue from the concepts of design thinking: prototype, test, fail & iterate.

Start with a hypothesis or idea, and build a simple prototype that’s quick and dirty. That might mean a hand-drawn mockup of a new website page or logo, or a paper cutout of a product.

Let that early prototype shape your thinking so you can conduct an early test of your idea. That could be a user survey embedded in your next digital newsletter, or a coupon code for a discount to entice new users to buy your product.

Sit back and study the early results. What worked? What didn’t? How could you improve and make it better?

I recently worked with a team of IT developers who were creating a new app, and they have loads of expertise in writing code and creating new functions but they don’t have much experience in the business world of companies they were building the app for — field service businesses, construction companies, HVAC and plumbing/electrical companies, real estate and property managers.

As the development team walked me through an early beta version of the app in a safe sandbox environment, we talked through use cases and lots of “what if I wanted to…” scenarios. They took that feedback and went back to the drawing board to overhaul the functionality and rethink how they approach the architecture and coding.

The new beta version was vastly superior, and has better functionality that will broaden its appeal for other potential users. After testing it some more in the sandbox, they’re doing additional iterations to make the user interface more friendly.

Applying design thinking to their hybrid waterfall/agile approach to development is pushing them to think more like an end user as they find better ways to build an excellent product.