‘Lean Experimentation’ practices should become an integral part of market research to fit the fast pace of today’s innovation cycles.
Every new product launch was once prepared like the landing of a space mission. Everything was arranged and synchronized with precision: television spots, global product shipping, marketing materials and salespoints. These once all needed to be in perfect harmony prior to a product launch.
In this model, there was no room for failure. Or even experimentation.
These mega launches still occur today. However, a new way of working is now viable: the experimental and iterative product launch. This methodology is known as Scrum.
The concept of Scrum lies in the understanding that consumers’ intentions will change unpredictably. Therefore, an upfront predictive approach is unsuited to stand-up to the challenges of this unpredictability. Only an evidence-based, step-by-step empirical method will tackle the problem. This is because such an approach unravels problems, and increases a team’s ability to respond to emerging requirements. They can then adapt to evolving technologies and changes in market condition.
But How Does this Work?
Beta-Versions or Prototypes of Minimal Valuable Products (MVPs) are exposed to the public in small and controllable settings. Takeaways directly contribute to the next stage of product development. These experiments allow measuring the actual impact of a new product or marketing materials based on subjects’ real actions. It makes it possible to predict the future based on what people do instead of what they say they will do within an artificial research environment.
Scrum is stimulated by agile product development for complex software. However, its iterative and incremental functionality was known to academic research for many decades by the name of ‘Grounded Theory’.
In ‘Grounded Theory’, the process of drawing assumptions starts directly after the first qualitative interviews. Based on the initial learnings, the objectives and questions are reviewed and updated rapidly to fit the reality of the situation. This entails a need to be prepared to stop the research, or to change its direction dramatically. For obvious reasons, this has never been an option for market researchers.
So, what’s required of a market researcher today to adapt to this agile way of working?
Become A Member of Several Development Teams
In this capacity, researchers can continuously distil the questions for the next iteration where the product or marketing can be validated by an experiment, and challenge the team to develop up to this point.
After this, the researcher can integrate experimental results into the next stage of product development.
However, the level of involvement a researcher has in a development team is crucial to preventing bias. It can be the key success criterion for a researcher to balance between an insight team and one or more development teams. This enables the researcher to swap perspectives to refine the gain from the current methods and challenges.
Look into the Adjacent Disciplines
The mindsets and toolboxes of design thinkers, innovation consultants, programmers, leadership coaches and designers, etc., are fertile grounds for inspiring tools and perspectives researchers can use:
- Design Thinking and Design Sprints teach us how to simplify and speed up the innovation processes
- Coding teaches us how to break down complexity, and remain actionable
- Lean start-up approaches teach us how to draw assumptions and validate them on-the-go during product development
Deploy Experiments Instead of Old Methods
These disciplines will allow you to make switches in how you work such as:
- Using a 30-minute impact-feasibility map vs. starting another weeks-long research project to identify KPIs
- Show print ads to target groups on Facebook and see which generates more likes vs. a costly concept test with group discussions
- Adapt ongoing promotional activity in a bar to find out if alcohol-free gin & tonic is going to be reordered vs. doing focus groups
Build a New Mindset
The pace of the modern world requires researchers to adopt a new mindset. In this world, long term prediction possibilities are limited. However, the data for immediate solutions is more abundant. Less structured methods can be more targeted and efficient vs. traditional ones. There are new risks, but the empirical, iterate approach can increase the impact of research.
Researchers who do all of this will force two changes in how they are perceived:
- Moving from a project-based researcher to an on-demand consultant
- Switching from old research tools to fast-paced insider cross-pollination methods
Given all this, why not step out of our comfort zone and adapt to new territory for the researcher? After all, we are entering a big playground for grown-ups, where experimenting is fun because we experience the impact of our work in a controlled set-up.
