lesson 35: test and learn

The book Think Small: The Surprisingly Simple Way to Reach Big Goals is written by two of the founding members of the British Behavioural Insights Team. Also known as the Nudge Unit, this group of civil servants has the task of trying to influence behavior in the public sphere for the purpose of improving life in the United Kingdom. One of their projects was to improve the experience and effectiveness of the unemployment office. Another was to increase the collection rate for back taxes. Another was to increase the number of people who register as an organ donor when they renew their vehicle registration or driver’s license.

One of the hallmarks of the Nudge Unit is that they don’t make assumptions about what will work. Instead they test and learn. For example, in the organ donor project, they tested eight different messages to see which was most effective. The most successful message increased organ donor registrations by 96,000 people. The least successful actually reduced the number of registrations.

The key point here is when you start something new you won’t necessarily know what works best. Rather than adhering rigidly to your plan you need to be willing to make adjustments as you go along. This will not only improve your outcomes, it will also create momentum as you determine what will work best.

In essence, the question to ask yourself is, “Does it work?” 
For example, Did changing the first line of a letter to tax delinquents by telling them how many other people have paid, result in more people paying on time? The answer was yes.
In another example the nudge unit sent a message with an infrared picture of peoples’ homes to show how much energy they were wasting. They compared that to the same message without the infrared image and asked, “Will the infrared picture get more people to insulate their homes?”

The answer was no. In fact it actually decreased the number of people who did so, possibly because the image showed a glowing home, might have been interpreted as lovely and cozy.
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The idea of test and learn is that you are constantly asking the question, "Does it work?" It gives you permission to adjust as you go to improve outcomes. It acknowledges that even though you have an idea of what works best, you don't know for sure. I find this to be quite freeing. It enables me to give my best effort, but it also frees me to tweak my approach to get even better. It can work for you, too.

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