Experimental Mind: becoming data-driven is hard

🔎 What I've been reading last week

Company culture is a harder hurdle to clear than any technical problem.

Randy Bean offers three principles to help companies achieve their goals.

Transforming an organization starts with transforming its leaders. Data from 1,700 executives by Linda Hill and colleagues reveals the most important skills and traits leaders need now. For example:

Leaders need to learn to experiment, iterate, and pivot themselves if their organizations are going to be able to thrive. In order to get comfortable with the inevitable missteps and unconfirmed hypotheses of experimentation, leaders need a new attitude toward risk.

March 28, the third cohort of the 'accelerating innovation with A/B testing' class starts. Ronny Kohavi will teach you everything he knows about A/B testing in 5 two hour sessions. Subscribe via this link and you will receive a $50 Amazon gift card.

John Cutler on what sets healthy, data-informed product teams apart.

Experiments “fail” as often as they succeed. While not everyone’s favorite moment, it also isn’t frowned upon or shunned. A team that succeeds all the time is either lying to themselves, or playing it far too safe.

Another gem by John Cutler. Especially helpful when you are in the phase of setting new OKRs for next quarter.

Post by Andrew Hon (PM for the experimentation platform at Tinder) on the value of A/B testing.

From execs to individual contributors, Salesforce encouraged everyone to cancel all meetings for a full week. Here’s what happened.

... requires creating an environment where adapting ways of working to improve our experimentation culture feels empowering, rather than uncomfortable, in a diverse team with different disciplines and varying levels of knowledge. 

Interview with economist John List on the Freakonomics podcast about his new book: The Voltage Effect.

He teaches us how to avoid false positives, how to know whether a given success is due to the chef or the ingredients, and how to practice “optimal quitting.”

🚀 Job opportunities

DUTCH: Wil jij grote digitale platformen zoals Videoland, RTL Nieuws of Buienradar helpen optimaliseren? RTL is op zoek naar jou.

All featured roles:

• Digital Analyst at RTL (Hilversum, NL)

• CRO Specialist at RTL (Hilversum, NL)

• Principal Analyst Experimentation at Vista (remote EU)

Or checkout the other 36 open roles.

📅 Upcoming events

Upcoming events in the next three months:

• MeasureCamp North America (Feb 26, virtual)

• Flagship 2022 (Mar 9-10, virtual)

• Conversionboost (Mar 15, Copenhagen)

• Accelerating Innovation with A/B Testing (Mar 28, virtual)

• Emerce Conversion (Apr 21, Amsterdam)

• Experimentation Elite (Apr 27, London)

See the full overview of events to find 15+ other events and conferences for you and your team.

💬 Quote of the week

“Reward worthy failure. Experimentation.” — Bill Gates

😉 Fun of the week

Do you see what is missing? [via John Biasi]

☕ Thanks for reading

If you’re enjoying the Experimental Mind newsletter and want to say thank you? Buy me a coffee. Or share this newsletter with a friend or colleague. Have a great week — and keep experimenting.

Kevin