Ok, so if we don’t know by now we should definitely know that money loves speed.
The problem is that most of move like molasses when we are trying out a new idea. The fear of failure makes us test and try new ideas at a snail’s pace. After all who can blame us it sucks to be wrong about things. Especially when it might be our idea so it is our ego on the line.
The longer we delay the less likely we get the bad news, that our idea SUCKS!
The thing is, that is faulty thinking. We don’t need to stop ourselves from being wrong. We want to be wrong FAST!.
Nothing wrong with being wrong, as long as you don’t stay wrong for long!
Ooh, I like that, seems I am waxing lyrical today.
Anyway, I digress.
Smart people want to be wrong fast and then course correct.
Introducing the “The Iteration Cycle”
Idea – Execute – Feedback – Adjust
Idea – This is where you come up with a new idea you deem worthy of testing. Notice we did not say guaranteed to work, or that our future depends on. No, we said worthy of testing. These are ideas with potential. We are not outcome dependent of them so we can test them fast, with little to no expectation. We test them to see what’s what!
Execute – This is the part where we take that new idea and real-world test it. We see if our idea holds water or springs a leak. This is the action stage. The “do you want it”, “does it work”, “is it better”, “does it make our lives easier” etc test.
Feedback – You see how the test performs This is where we get to see if our idea has merit or not. We want to know the good the bad and the ugly. Again we don’t have a stake in the outcome, we only care about what it shows us. We gather our data and we assess it.
Adjust – After all the data is in we have some decisions to make. Do we keep the idea, do we discard the idea, do we improve the idea? We see if the idea has any value and if the idea can be improved on or let go. Once we have made that decision we make improvements based on feedback and come up with…
Idea – You create that new idea.
We then run that new idea through the cycle.
We Rinse and Repeat until we get the outcome we are looking for, or we discard the experiment entirely. We then just find or develop a new idea to test.
The faster you move through the cycle the quicker you improve. Some key points I would like to draw your attention to.
Don’t be married to ideas, be married to feedback.
A bad idea that you are rid of is better than an untested idea you pin your hopes on.
The more bad ideas you get though the faster you will get to the good ideas.
Don’t let tests be seen as failures only feedback.
Ok, so that’s the iteration cycle.
What ideas have you been sitting on that you should test?
If you like this idea you might like to check out THIS