The Second Face of Innovation: The Experimenter
This is part of a multi-part series about the book The Ten Faces of Innovation written by Tom Kelley. You can read the first two parts of this series, The Ten Faces of Innovation and The Anthropologist.
The second face of innovation as described by Tom Kelley is the Experimenter. In contrast to the Anthropologist which learns by observing, the Experimenter learns by doing and testing. People in both of these roles are very curious and seek to understand the needs of a customer - but from different angles. Often, the Experimenter will introduce something new to the end user’s environment and then identify the reaction to this new item or process, record the response, and evaluate the feedback. From the other angle, an anthropologist will try to isolate the main points through detailed observations, video recording, and interviews of end users in their natural environment.
The Experimenter will employ testing and prototyping more than any other of the ten faces of innovation. Experimenters are simply unable to let a question go unanswered when a small, quick, inexpensive, and dirty prototype will provide the answer. All of us have moments when we act as an Experimenter but some of us might be perennial Experimenters.
I have a colleague whose office is riddled with both successes and failures of his experiments. Just the other day I overheard a janitor mention how interesting it is to look at all the random tests and prototypes lying around his workstation. As an Experimenter, he has learned a lot over the years from those roughly-glued-together, quickly-3D-printed, and crudely-cardboard-constructed tests. The lessons wouldn’t have come any other way and since those lessons are inexpensive and quick, his learning efficiency is quite high. Sometimes, the fastest way to gain knowledge about a design is through an experiment, a test, or a prototype; and sometimes, it is through many experiments, many tests, and many prototypes.
Most people are aware of Thomas Edison’s claim that he and his team tried out thousands of designs of the light bulb filament before one finally worked. Likewise, he is famously known for the positive refrain that he discovered many ways that don’t work. He was an Experimenter. Even if the experiment failed, there were lessons to be learned. Every experiment, properly executed, is more knowledge, whether it was a success or failure. James Dyson is another Experimenter who tried out thousands of designs, 5127 different versions to be exact, of his cyclone vacuum before nailing an awesome design. You and I rarely have done anything that number of times, but we’d be good at whatever it was and would certainly learn a thing or two. He certainly did, and was greatly rewarded financially for his efforts. Another successful product, WD-40, has a similar story. The product name itself, WD-40, calls back to the 40th test that finally worked as a water-displacement formula. Maybe we aren’t ready to do 5000, but are we willing to do 40 experiments?
The way to reach these high experiment numbers (and ultimately all the lessons that come with them) is through many fast and simple tests. Experimenters love the idea of a prototype that takes hours or days instead of weeks or months. A 90% solution before the end of the day is better than a 99% solution a week from today. By extension, 7 days later, 7 more prototypes have been tested, and 7 more lessons have been learned. Experimenters will pride themselves on answering the questions in the most efficient way possible. That might be with cardboard and glue, wood and nails, or random things around an office.
It’s amazing what Experimenters can do with a same-day deadline or even during a meeting, in almost real-time. For example, Kelley shares a story of a young engineer leaving a room during a discussion with surgeons about a new design they were trying to convey. He found a marker, a clip, and black film canister lying around and within 5 minutes taped together a rough prototype and walked back into the room. The surgeons were ecstatic and it began the process of a novel surgical tool found in thousands of operating rooms across the country.
Another important lesson Experimenters know is that multiple prototypes are essential. Imagine bringing one prototype home for your family to evaluate. They will likely sing your praises because they might be worried any negative comments about the design will be passed onto you - the designer. But if you have two or more prototypes, they can be much more honest and open about the weaknesses and strengths of each of your designs and pitch them against each other and not onto you. This is one more reason to have many small, rough prototypes instead of one detailed one.
Experimenters are also known to be rule breakers -- not in any malicious, illegal, or belligerent way, but in testing out ideas that are outside the box, non-traditional, or pushing the envelope. Most of the people you can list off from history were these kinds of people. They wanted to change something in the world and so they tried it out. Often, their experiments were not tangible (i.e. like a product) but were new ideas, perspectives, or actions (i.e. like processes). Rosa Parks and Florence Nightingale come to mind. Experimenters can prototype a process within organizations and evaluate concepts in the same way as physical objects. Kelley describes an experiment at a hospital where one of the employees pretended to deliver a baby and as an “undercover mother” experienced the transition from the maternity ward to post-partum care. The experiment identified some interesting steps that new mothers would find distressing or confusing.
To become a better Experimenter, start by simply imagining what experiments you’d run now, if you could. For example, in my current position as a professor, I would love to try out a four-day academic week in our department. There would be classes with a Monday/Wednesday schedule or a Tuesday/Thursday schedule. All lectures would be 80 minutes long. Friday would be open for meetings, office hours, recitations, labs, research, writing, homework, or even just taking it off. It would be flexible and could be used however people want. Recent research suggests this would result in increased productivity and happiness (It’s hard to deny each other those potential benefits). Furthermore, Finland’s prime minister wants to make the 4-day workweek a national law so my experiment isn’t even that novel. After all, what’s the worst that could happen? The experiment fails and we go back to the status quo? The lessons we’d learn seem to be worth the cost, which in my mind wouldn’t be too high. Anyway, let me know what you think about this experiment in a comment or letter to the editor.
