Take Insights in Stride: Using iterative experiments in product development

Traditionally, entrepreneurs and intrapreneurs come up with wild, life-changing product ideas and then write a comprehensive, step-by-step business plan illustrating how that product should be developed. Hope and expectations for product performance remain high for months, if not years, until the riskiest assumption about the product is tested: Do customers really want it? Too often, the answer is no, and the time, money, sweat, and tears invested in the product amount to nothing.

With experiences like these, it’s easy to understand why product managers and entrepreneurs have begun taking a more iterative, “lean” approach to product development. Adopting modern methodologies with an emphasis on continuous customer feedback and experimentation enables product managers to avoid the rabbit hole of building something no one wants.

But rapidly adapting to user feedback can be difficult and tiresome. Product managers need a framework to process and analyze user engagement through scripted, controlled experiments. These experiments are evolutionary, or change intelligently based on the results of former experiments.

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