Remember, the goal is to test your proposed solutions as efficiently as possible, not build something that’s bomb-proof. Nevertheless, you’ll want to be thoughtful about minimizing risks. A few tips:

1. Keep it simple. Test one or two hypotheses at a time, starting with the most critical.

1. Use volunteers. Don’t compel anyone to take part in your experiment.

1. Make it fun. Think of ways to gamify the experience.

1. Start in your own backyard. That will minimize the number of permissions you need and the risk that someone tells you to stop.

1. Run the new in parallel with the old. Don’t blow up the existing process until you’ve validated the new one.

1. Refine and retest. Create an expectation that this will be the first of many experiments.

1. Stay loyal to the problem. Don’t fall in love with your solution. If it doesn’t pan out, search for other testable hacks.

1. Specify Conditions

Once a diverse set of possibilities is established, the team then needs to reverse engineer the logic of each possibility. That is, it needs to specify what must be true for the possibility to be a terrific choice. Notice, this step is decidedly not for arguing about what is true, but rather for laying out the logic of what would have to be true for the group to collectively commit to a choice...

This process is a form of reverse engineering because the starting point is the (tentative) assumption that the conclusion is valid—namely, that this is a great possibility. The team then works to understand the conditions under which that assumption is correct. It works backward to declare the various conditions that would have to hold for this to be a great possibility. Figure 8-3 shows the logic flow of this reverse-engineering exercise. In each of the seven boxes, you can list what would have to be true along that dimension for the option in question to be valid.

Nice-to-have conditions need to be culled so that every condition is actually a binding one. The process of reverse engineering is complete only when each group member understands the logic of the possibility and can say, “Yes, if all of those conditions were

true, this would be a great possibility. And if any single condition weren’t true, this would not be a good possibility.

1. Identify Barriers to Choice

The fourth step in the process constitutes a 180-degree flip. The previous step stayed assiduously away from opinions on whether the conditions would hold true. This creates an environment that enables each team member to explore the logic behind the possibility and to codify and organize it. Now, and only now, you can cast a critical eye on the conditions your team has identified. The task is to assess which of the conditions your team believes are the least likely to hold true. In other words, now that you’ve specified what would have to be true for this possibility to be a great idea, which of those conditions worry the team the most and seem the least likely to be true? These conditions constitute the barriers that keep you and the team from choosing that possibility. Until you know if they are true or not, you can’t move ahead. In this step, it is extremely important to pay close attention to the group member who is the most skeptical that a condition will hold true; a skeptic can provide extremely valuable insurance against making a bad choice. So

skeptical group members must be encouraged to raise, not suppress, concerns at this point in the process. Even if only one person has concerns about a given condition, it should remain on the list of key barriers.

1. Conduct Tests

The test design process leads to the actual testing phase and the analysis of results. Here,

we recommend taking what we sometimes call the lazy person’s approach to strategy. Simply put, first test the things you’re most dubious about. Take the condition the team feels is the least likely to hold up, and test it first. If the team’s suspicion is right, that possibility will be eliminated without the need to test any of the other conditions. The possibility has already failed an essential test, so no more tests are necessary. If, on the other hand, the possibility passes the first test, move on to the condition with the next- lowest confidence level, and so on...

To generate choice and commitment, companies actually need analysis that is an inch wide and a mile deep—focused precisely on the concerns that prevent the team from choosing and going deep enough in that particular area to meet the team’s standard of proof. That is what reverse engineering enables you to do: probe precisely and deeply into the barriers to choice.