Business Thinking for Designers

Track goals with experimentation
Design teams at high maturity levels find ways to quantify 
the value of design to the larger organization through 
experimentation. These teams create experiments that 
measure desirability and viability. They also understand that 
experimentation leads to active learning and the establishment 
of trust with their colleagues. 
Experimentation is, at its core, about active 
learning and value creation. To thrive, your team 
must learn faster than the competition AND 
convert that learning into value faster than the 
competition. 
John Cutler
Product Evangelist at 
Amplitude

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100 
Create conditions for design maturity
The key to creating good product experiments is to start with 
two viability goals at once: a primary goal that changes and 
a secondary goal that stays the same. In other words, the 
primary goal is something the team wants to achieve without 
losing something else. 
For example: Our (primary) goal is to increase revenue while 
keeping costs the same (secondary).
The key to creating great product experiments is to consider 
two viability goals AND two desirability goals at the same 
time. One of my favorite methods for validating these types of 
experiments is described in the book Designing with Data by 
Elizabeth F. Churchill, Rochelle King, and Caitlin Tan. Below is a 
synopsis of how it works.