When I was a product manager at Expedia, we had a pretty robust test-and-learn infrastructure.

We could A/B-test subtle copy and UX changes throughout the shopping path to see the impact on user engagement and purchase behavior.

Even better, we had the luxury of having so much user traffic that in a matter of days, we could achieve statistical significance about the amount of annual revenue one of those tweaks would generate.

Anywhere from tens of thousands to millions of dollars to the bottom line for each winning test.

And we were running hundreds of them at a time.

Add that real-world product testing to in-house research teams and an endless stream of solicited and unsolicited customer feedback — we were drowning in data.

Interestingly though, while small net-positive changes were easy to push through (remember, we had statistical proof of positive return)...

...moderate strategic changes still took months or sometimes years to get traction amidst the bureaucracy.

Even with more insights in our possession than we could parse through.

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On our own as soloists, we have the inverse problem.

We don’t have the luxury of being overwhelmed with data to support our decisions.

Or have the time or cash to go out and get it.

Statistical significance? Ha! Literally impossible in our context.

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But, we do have strategic agility.

Got a growing hunch for a new service or product?

Got a handful of customer conversations to support building a test?

You don’t need to wait your turn for a slot on the monthly Leadership Team agenda to get approval.

Start testing it, gauge demand, and make a call based on an early read.

Didn’t work out? At least you know quickly.

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Given the choice between decision confidence and strategic agility…

I think I’d rather have the latter.

This is supposed to be fun, after all.

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💡

-Wes

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