How to Embrace Experimentation in Problem Solving

The more mistakes a team makes, the more quickly they learn and more resilient they become… yet so many of the teams I work with are terrified of making a mistake! They have so much on their plates that they’re singularly focused on crossing things off their lists so the thought of experimenting with a new approach and having to redo it is soul-crushing. OR They’re operating within a prove-your-worth culture in which mistakes are attributed to personal failure and incompetence. OR There is no appetite for risk and the only acceptable way of working is to do things the way they’ve always been done. OR any number of other reasons top performers make themselves small instead of taking a risk that could be a win. This is bad for business. And for morale. When mistakes are seen as part of the process, teams feel safer taking risks, which leads to creative solutions and faster progress. Leaders need to focus on 3 things to encourage experimentation so their teams will risk making mistakes in pursuit of a win: 𝟭. 𝗙𝗼𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗿 𝘀𝗲𝗹𝗳 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗰𝗼𝗹𝗹𝗲𝗰𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲-𝗰𝗼𝗺𝗽𝗮𝘀𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 When we meet failures with compassion, we soften the emotional blow and decouple it from identity. With compassion, the individual is not a failure (fixed mindset)… they’re an innovator who tried something that failed (growth mindset). ❇ Tip: Normalize mistakes and conversations about mistakes by conducting regular retros for missteps, large and small. Emphasize the key learnings and takeaways, not the flawed logic or approach. No blame, no ego threat, no identity crisis, no problem trying it again another way. 𝟮. 𝗖𝘂𝗹𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝗹𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗰𝘂𝗹𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 When learning is valued over perfection, teams are more willing to experiment, try new approaches, and push boundaries. ❇ Tip: Reinforce growth mindset as a core cultural tenet. Encourage team members to set personal development goals and allocate a budget to it. Even a small contribution can have symbolic & cultural value. Reward effort and improvement, not just outcomes and encourage voluntary share-outs or team-wide trackers. 𝟯. 𝗖𝗿𝗲𝗮𝘁𝗲 𝗮 𝘀𝘆𝘀𝘁𝗲𝗺 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝗲𝘅𝗽𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗺𝗲𝗻𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 Experimentation increases both the absolute number of failures and the failure rate. AND Done with systems, strategy and intention, it also accelerates growth, discovery and successful solutions. Establishing a system for experimentation allows teams to test ideas in controlled, low-risk environments where failure is seen as a step toward success. ❇ Tip: Implement a process for innovation sprints in which team members are encouraged to suggest & test bold ideas with clear guidelines on how to analyze & iterate based on the outcomes. These shifts to culture and process can have a massive impact. Teams that are encouraged to make mistakes ✔ learn more quickly, ✔ are more resilient and ✔ are more likely to take smart risks that can lead to sustainable, step function success.

It isn't an experiment if it can't fail One of the warmup exercises I run for my workshops is to have people write down or draw what their biggest fear is with regards to running experiments in their organizations. Their responses often illustrate that far too few of us work in environments where it is safe to fail. "That we run out of patience with management" "It fails and my boss thinks I'm stupid" There is a big difference between Fail Safe and Safe to Fail in organizations. Fail Safe implies an organization that is designed to prevent failure and emphasize control. There are systems where this is applicable, often when both the problem and solution are known (and nothing changes). Safe to Fail on the other hand, acknowledges that a failure is inevitable and is designed to absorb these failures without significant impact. Here we identify and map the risk, then run experiments to address our riskiest assumptions. It is my belief that leaders are ultimately responsible for the environment of their organizations and I'm not convinced this fear of experimentation is intentional. There are several ways leaders can begin to create an environment of Safe to Fail inside their organizations:   👉 Promote an open dialogue where employees feel comfortable sharing ideas, asking questions, and expressing concerns without fear of retribution. 👉 Openly share stories of failures, lessons learned, and how these experiences contributed to growth. This helps demystify failure and frames it as a valuable learning opportunity. 👉 Recognize and reward not just successful outcomes but also the willingness to take calculated risks and experiment, even when the results are not as expected. 👉 Actively participate in experimentation, showcasing their commitment to a safe-to-fail environment. Leadership behavior sets the tone for the rest of the organization. 👉 Ensure that failures are met with constructive feedback rather than blame. This helps maintain morale and encourages ongoing risk-taking. 👉 Shift from traditional performance metrics that focus solely on success rates to metrics that value learning, experimentation volume, and adaptability. 👉 Share stories and data that highlight how experiments, even those that didn’t go as planned, contributed to the organization’s strategic goals. If you've made this shift in your organization, what has worked for you?

85% of manufacturing leaders want more innovation. Only 6% are satisfied with their results. This massive gap isn't about capability. It's about fear. A VP of Engineering recently confessed to me: "My team has brilliant ideas in private conversations. Those same ideas vanish completely in our formal innovation meetings." Sound familiar? The disconnect isn't about talent or technology. It's about psychological safety. When failure means blame, innovation dies silently. Here's what I discovered early in my career working with high-tech manufacturers: structured experimentation doesn't just drive technical outcomes. structured experimentation fundamentally transforms team psychology. Let me share one innovation secret: EXPERIMENTS CAN'T FAIL The smartest teams rigorously separate experiments from implementations. ➡️ "An experiment that disproves our hypothesis succeeded at its job." I often tell engineers " A null result is still a result." ➡️ They celebrate insights gained, not just ideas validated. ➡️ They ask "What did we learn?" not "Did it work?" One equipment manufacturer that I worked with made this shift explicit. In their innovation meetings, they stopped asking teams to "pitch solutions." Instead, they asked: "What experiment could answer our biggest unknown?" The result? Soon everyone was participating. This simple shift eliminates the fear of suggesting ideas that might not work. It transforms the question from "What if I'm wrong?" to "What will we discover?" The psychology is everything. When people know their ideas won't be judged as right or wrong only as experiments that generate data they feel safe to contribute more boldly. What's really holding back innovation in your organization: lack of ideas or lack of safety to try them? Tomorrow I'll share how the smartest teams compress learning cycles from weeks to days. It's not what most leaders expect. Follow me so you don't miss part 2 tomorrow. #PersonalGrowth #PsychologicalSafety #Experiment

Stop debating ideas that could be tested in 10 minutes. I recently put together a fun visual around a simple concept: Try-storming. Instead of spending time discussing what might work, try-storming encourages teams to simulate the idea and see what actually happens. Move the table. Change the sequence. Test the layout. Run the process. No slide deck required. Some of the best learning doesn’t come from conversation — it comes from trying something, seeing the result, and adjusting from there. Because once you simulate the work: • Assumptions get challenged • Problems become visible • Better ideas emerge I’ve seen this come to life in kaizen events and continuous improvement efforts. When teams shift from debating to trying, momentum builds quickly. As a coach, one of the most impactful nudges is simply: 👉 “Let’s go try it.” It lowers the barrier to action and helps teams learn faster by doing — not just discussing. Try-storming doesn’t replace thinking — it accelerates it. Less debating. More doing. Where could your team test an idea today instead of talking about it? #Lean #TryStorming #Kaizen #ContinuousImprovement #ProblemSolving #OperationalExcellence #Coaching #LearningByDoing

Fear of failure can hold us all back, but I’ve found a simple mindset shift that helps me take the plunge without being paralysed by fear: I treat everything as an experiment. An experiment isn’t about succeeding or failing. It’s about testing a hypothesis, learning, and collecting data. So, whenever I feel the jitters about a new project, I reframe it as an experiment to take the pressure off. Here’s how it works: 1. Start with a goal What’s something you want to achieve?  Let’s say you’re aiming to start a YouTube channel. 2. Turn your goal into a hypothesis Ask yourself, “What am I curious about? What do I want to find out?” You might enjoy making videos about travel. 3. Design a simple experiment Break it down into manageable steps to test your hypothesis. Post three travel videos in the next three months. After running the experiment, check your results.  Did you enjoy making the videos? Were you consistent? If it felt natural and enjoyable, that’s a good sign that this path is worth exploring. Here’s another example if you’re thinking of starting a business: Goal: Build a successful business. Hypothesis: I can help people by building websites. Experiment: Email ten people who might benefit from having a personal website and gauge interest. If you get five positive responses, great, it’s a sign there’s demand. If not, that’s okay too. You’ve collected data to refine your approach. The key takeaway? Even if your experiment doesn’t go as planned, it’s not a failure – it’s just data. Tweak your hypothesis, adjust, and try again. Over time, these experiments help build self-awareness, which, in turn, lessens the fear of failure. You’re learning and evolving rather than “failing.” BTW, if you’re an aspiring creator who’s let fear get in the way of putting yourself out there, you might want to check out my YouTube scorecard. 👇 https://lnkd.in/e5-GhB7N

Complex problems don’t often yield to confident answers. They yield to good experiments. Most leadership failure in complexity isn’t about intelligence. It’s about overconfidence. We move too fast to solutions before we understand what we are up against. In complex environments, cause and effect can only be understood in retrospect, not in advance. That’s straight from Snowden and Boone’s work on the Cynefin framework. In complexity, leaders don’t analyze first. They probe, sense, and respond. That’s why small experiments matter. Amy Edmondson’s research shows that learning-focused experimentation reduces fear and increases adaptive performance, especially when outcomes are uncertain. From what I’ve seen, the leaders who navigate complexity well: ♟️ Run the smallest possible test that still teaches them something ♟️ Make assumptions explicit instead of hiding them ♟️ Limit the blast radius so learning stays safe ♟️ Time-box efforts to prevent endless debate ♟️ Debrief quickly and decide what to do next This isn’t about being reckless. It’s about being intentionally humble in the face of uncertainty. If you’re waiting for clarity before acting, you’re already behind. In my experience, clarity often comes after movement. I’m curious. Where are you experimenting, and where are you still pretending certainty is possible? *** 📢 I am booking 2026 keynotes and workshops. DM me to learn more. 🤓 Follow me at Scott J. Allen, Ph.D. for daily content on leadership 📌 Design by Bela Jevtovic

I spent almost a decade writing ineffective software because I didn't do this... Enabling our product team to make data-driven decisions. Specifically, having an A/B experimentation framework in place to test different ways features could be presented to users. Life without A/B Experiments: - Endless debates about whose copy is better - Designing based on gut feelings instead of evidence - Risky launches without knowing what works - Assuming "what worked before" will work again - Struggling to explain decisions to stakeholders Life with A/B Experiments: - Clear, data-driven decisions - Discovering unexpected user preferences - Testing small changes before committing to big ones - Building a culture of curiosity and iteration - Making stakeholders confident in your choices If you're on a team that regularly conducts A/B experiments, maybe this seems obvious to you. If you're not, maybe this sounds too good to be true. I know that now that I've been on teams that embrace experimentation, it'd be hard to go back to an environment that lacks it. How has your experience with A/B experiments and data driven software development been?

When was the last time you gave yourself permission to experiment? As a leader, I’ve learned that growth—both for myself and my team—comes from embracing the unknown and being willing to fail. But here’s the catch: it’s not just about taking risks. It’s about framing those risks as experiments. Too often, we get stuck in a binary way of thinking: It’s this way or that way. I’m succeeding or failing. I’m on the right path or the wrong one. That mindset can hold us back because it assumes that every decision has to be final. What if, instead, we treated our paths like a “choose your own adventure” story? • What happens if we try this for three months? • What happens if we pursue two directions at the same time? • What happens if we pivot halfway through and try something completely different? The beauty of experiments is that they allow us to stay curious and flexible. They remind us that failure is part of the process—not a permanent state. As a business owner, I carry the weight of responsibility for failures, but I try to encourage my team to see them differently: as stepping stones to something better. The truth is, not all experiments lead to breakthroughs. Some fail. Some confirm what we already suspected. But without them, we’ll never know what’s possible. Whether you’re charting a career path, launching a new service, or exploring an unfamiliar opportunity, I encourage you to think less about the right path and more about experimenting with many paths. What could you experiment with today? #DigitalLeadership #InclusiveDesign #DesignForImpact

Leading with humility, not just authority -- In a world of constant disruption, what’s the biggest risk a leader can take?  It is believing they have all the answers. I was reminded of this by Tim Harford’s classic TED talk on trial, error, and the "God Complex."  For those of us driving strategy in complex organizations, his message is more relevant than ever. It's not about having the perfect plan; it's about building a system that finds the best plan. My key takeaways for any leader today: - Challenge the "God Complex": True leadership isn't about being infallible. It's about fostering a culture of psychological safety where your best people are empowered to challenge assumptions and point out the blind spots you inevitably have. - Embrace Rapid Iteration: Harford’s Unilever example—developing a nozzle through 45 prototypes—is brilliant. The goal isn't a perfect first draft; it's a rapid learning cycle. Value progress over perfection. - Treat Failure as Data: Every "mistake" is simply a data point telling you what doesn't work. When we build systems that measure outcomes and learn from them without blame, we aren't failing—we're getting smarter, faster. - Build an Evolutionary Engine: Your strategy should be designed to evolve. Instead of placing one huge bet, place many small, intelligent ones. Let real-world results—not just boardroom theory—pick the winners. Leadership isn't about having the map; it's about building a better compass. How do you build experimentation into your team's DNA? #Leadership #Experimentation #AdaptiveStrategy #LearningCulture #Innovation #RRD #BusinessResilience #ContinuousImprovement

Innovation doesn’t happen by chance. It’s built - deliberately, brick by brick - by leaders who refuse to accept the limits of what’s currently possible. ' In a world driven by constant disruption, the most effective leaders are not those who react to trends but those who architect what comes next. They engineer the unimagined. But how do you lead teams to create what doesn’t yet exist? How do you solve problems no one has dared to define? The answer lies in a mindset - one rooted in adaptive thinking, bold experimentation, and a willingness to challenge assumptions at every step. Bold, audacious goals often feel overwhelming. That’s why the first step toward engineering the unimagined is to break the impossible into the inevitable. Instead of treating complexity as a barrier, leaders must dissect it into patterns, data, and insights that can be acted upon. Consider cybersecurity - a space where I’ve spent much of my career. Security challenges often evolve faster than the systems designed to defend against them. Building solutions requires breaking down large, undefined risks into solvable parts: vulnerabilities, behaviors, and gaps that can be identified, measured, and addressed. By reducing ambiguity, leaders empower teams to move from analysis paralysis to action. When treading uncharted territory, static frameworks fail. Leaders must develop adaptive thinking systems - a mental model that evolves alongside problems. Instead of searching for the “perfect” answer, adaptive leaders focus on creating continuous cycles of testing, learning, and improving. Most organizations don’t fail because they lack ideas; they fail because they don’t question their assumptions. Leaders must create cultures where asking why, what if, and what’s next is not only encouraged but expected. When I work with teams, I often push them to dismantle “accepted truths” and rebuild their strategies from the ground up. This mindset doesn’t just uncover risks - it reveals possibilities others overlook. Big ideas need teams with bold mindsets. Leaders must hire people who aren’t afraid of ambiguity, nurture curiosity, and create environments where failure is a tool for learning - not a source of fear. Engineering the unimagined doesn’t happen by waiting for breakthroughs. It happens by creating it.