Practical habits for experimentation

I’ve been wanging on (technical term) about the value of experimentation for a while now. I've written about it elsewhere, and I keep coming back to it because I really do think it’s one of the most useful (and underused) practices that cultural organisations could adopt, particularly around digital initiatives.

Experimentation gives us a way to play with new ideas in (sometimes) quick, focused, low-risk ways.

It helps us learn what actually works (and what doesn’t) before we commit time, energy, and budget to bigger changes. It can also help derisk those bigger investments.

And given how fast everything around us is shifting, working in this way doesn't just feel helpful, it feels essential and necessary.

As Nick Sherrard said when I spoke to him about this "...a willingness to learn by doing will outperform someone who just talks about their ideas."

But one of the questions I always get is how to start working like this in the real world, in organisations that are already stretched, short on time, and not exactly brimming with digital confidence or an appetite for change.

So I’ve put together a list of practical habits/behaviours that I see in the teams and individuals who do this well.

Making the shift to an experimentation mindset doesn’t happen overnight. It takes commitment, and you need to treat it as more than a one-off to really get value from it. But you can start very small. As long as you’re testing something specific, linking it to your priorities, and setting yourself up to learn, you’re on the right track.

As Kati Price (Head of Experience at the V&A) puts it:

“Start by asking, what’s the impact you want to have? In which case, what do you need to learn, and what are the tests you could run that will help you find the answers? It’s good to frame this as a hypothesis – by doing X we believe we will achieve Y.”

So, below are some ideas.

Of course, permission structures and legacy processes wherever you are will still shape what feels ‘safe’ to try. The principles below can help but they also rely (somewhat) on leadership creating the right environment for them to take root.

If you're not in a leadership role, start small anyway but try to connect your ideas to shared priorities, and make sure you document and share the results. That’s how you will start to build the space for more of this type of work to be possible (and allowed or even encouraged).

None of this is easy. Many teams want to work this way but feel trapped by culture, hierarchy, or lack of permission. If that’s you, you’re not alone, but these principles can still offer a way in.

You don’t need to apply all 11 behaviours at once. Think of this less as a checklist and more as a toolkit: pick two or three to try, and revisit the rest as your confidence grows. The point isn’t to do everything it’s to start doing something, and learn as you go.