<p>Several people wrote in in response to last week’s post regarding Lean Experiments for finding People of Peace.</p>

<p>All were essentially asking for more ideas about experiments to run, or how to create experiments. In this post, I’m briefly going to share the system I use for creating “Lean Experiments.” The idea is to have something very simple, which enables you to run new experiments just as fast as the last experiment can be evaluated.</p>

<p>On a large table, I’ve set up a series of 9 Post-It Notes, running vertically down the table one right after the other, each forming a “row.”</p>

<p>The Post-It notes are, in order:</p>

<ul>
  <li>Leap of Faith Assumption</li>
  <li>Hypothesis (Specific, Measurable description of LoA)</li>
  <li>Experiment: minimum req’d to test hypothesis</li>
  <li>Behavior: how experiment shows results (aim for visible action–no surveys)</li>
  <li>Success Goal / Target Metric / Commit to the Finish Line</li>
  <li>Actual Result</li>
  <li>Why / Observed Behavior</li>
  <li>New Insight</li>
  <li>Resulting Decision</li>
</ul>

<p>I “create” an experiment simply by putting Post-It notes to the right, in a column, answering these questions.</p>

<p>The Leap of Faith Assumption is the broad overarching idea you have.</p>

<p>“There is a Person of Peace in this town.” The Hypothesis is the specific thing you want to test with regard to the LoA: “People of Peace can best be found through interactions in marketplaces.” You can develop hypotheses by mapping out a place and asking questions about who/where/when/how People of Peace might be found.</p>

<p>Markets? Streets? Business relationships? Refugee camps? Clinics? Mornings? Afternoons? Evenings? Now, you need an Experiment to test the Hypothesis (basic science here).</p>

<p>“I will visit the market once a day, using <em>x</em> story set.” As a result of the experiment, what “behavior” would be a success? This behavior needs to be visible.</p>

<p>For some businesses, it would be signups or sales or the like.</p>

<p>For you, it might be a response that suggests a Person of Peace, whatever that response may be (ask for more stories? positive response to suggestion of a Bible study or the like?).</p>

<p>Success Goal: define a level of behavioral response which represents a success line.</p>

<p>Choose the target you’re reaching for before you see results.</p>

<p>(We aren’t shooting arrows at the tree and then painting targets around them.) Actual Goal: the actual results of the experiment you ran.</p>

<p>Why/Observed Behavior: ask yourself why you got the results you did.</p>

<p>Were they close to the success goal, and maybe just need tweaking? Were people not responding at all? Was it a bad time of day–too crowded? Look for insights.</p>

<p>New Insight: this is what you come away with, that forms the basis for your Decision.</p>

<p>Decision: this is what you decide on the basis of the experiment.</p>

<p>It may be to drop the story set, or change times, or whatever.</p>

<p>A decision usually leads into a new experiment.</p>

<p>By using an approach similar to this – doesn’t have to be this exact one, but this has a lot of user testing behind it – you are documenting your experiments and learning from them.</p>

<p>It’s a lot better for you to use a system of rapid experimentation and iteration than for me to try to give you tactical ideas that someone else has used, which you’ll have to adapt anyway.</p>