One of my specialties is taking an idea from my creative collaborators and making that a reality. After we’ve settled on the idea statement - so that we all have a clear idea of what the heck we’re actually trying to do - the next step is a process that I call “field testing.” I think of this as taking the idea out for a little walk.
This process is part of the idea formulation phase, and the goal is to get concrete feedback that allows you to elaborate on the idea, vet it with real people who will be impacted, and find the pain points early so you can develop mitigation strategies. The ultimate outcome of this step is to reduce the overall risk that often comes part and parcel with innovation.
Most ideas need more than one field test, but use caution. It is a very short trip from field test to wheel spin, where the idea stays in a continuous cycle of revision and never becomes a concrete reality. However, not doing any field testing often results in impractical ideas that don't have any real staying power, and the risk of wasted money, time, and reputation increases.
Field Test 1: The Friendly Field Test
Field tests can be done a few different ways. The easiest, and the first one I recommend, is just to bounce the whole concept off a collaboration partner. The collaboration partner needs to be someone you trust in a couple of ways: first, you need to trust them to ask clarifying questions and give you candid feedback. They should also be one of those people who generally welcomes new ideas, but also is pragmatic enough to help see potential issues. And obviously, they need to be someone you trust not to steal your idea. I call this the “friendly” field test.
This Friendly field test is intended to help you articulate your idea and get an evaluation of how the idea lands with someone who wasn’t part of the creation. Pay close attention to the questions the person asks and, importantly, to their nonverbal communication.
Did they lean in? Make eye contact? Or did they lean back and furrow their brow? Walk through each of the questions they ask and clarify things.
Listen also for who would be impacted by this idea. “Oh Greg in accounting is going to LOVE this.” Or “...yikes I wonder what Marla is gonna say about this. This could change a lot of her job.”
This test can actually be quite short because you’ll get immediate feedback. You’ll know right away if you need to regroup and flesh out the idea more by those initial questions.
For example,
If the friendly field test response is close to “…uh.. What now?”
You need more definition.
If the response was in the camp of “ uh.. that is a terrible idea”
you need to dig into why your friendly test yielded that result.
If the response was “… hmmm.. That’s interesting..” and then you and your collaboration partner launch into a discussion about what ifs ..
you’re very much on the right track.
The Friendly test helps you answer WHAT you’re doing.
Take the feedback you got and sit with it for a bit. Think about what you learned, where the idea still has holes, and what the pinch points your test uncovered. Refresh and revise your language, add more definition to the idea, and get ready for the next test.
Field Test 2: The Skeptic Test
This next one is a little harder and almost always takes more time. Here you want to find someone who does not welcome new ideas, that person whose default setting is “no thank you.”
Follow the same process and describe your newly refined idea. Watch for the same feedback - verbal and nonverbal. Does this person give you a little sideeye? (take this with a grain of salt - does this person give EVERY new idea a side eye? Is it more sideeye than usual?).
If they say - “oh this will never work” - use that as the starting point for a discussion - talk through all the reasons why your skeptic thinks that.
The important aspect of this test is making the business problem really clear and building out the WHY and how this idea solves that problem. If you cannot get the person to understand why the idea is needed - pause and reflect. Maybe this truly is not the right solution and you need to analyze the problem better.
But, if you’re getting clarifying questions, suggestions for how to implement, things to think about, you should keep moving ahead. Take the feedback and revise and refine your idea again.
By this test, your idea itself is likely to hold water. The refinements you make after this point are going to be more focused on how to implement it.
Field Test 3: Paper Pilot
In most cases, there is one more field test that you should do and this one takes the longest amount of time.
For this, you want to engage a small team of the people who are going to be affected by the idea. This test is designed to get buy-in from the critical players, get to the nitty gritty of what is needed to roll the idea out, and begin identifying training needs and rough timelines. You can think of this as a mock pilot of the idea - done wholly on paper (slides or white board in actuality) - before any process is changed or anyone is impacted.
This team will likely become your implementation team and will help you transfer this process from the field test phase into the follow through phase, and it should include your friendly and skeptic testers.
During this test, you’re going to go over the what, why, and how the idea addresses the business problem. Here again, pay close attention to the questions and nonverbal communication. Did Sammie cross her arms all of sudden? Anyone roll their eyes? Spend some time answering people’s questions and addressing concerns.
If the concerns are small, begin asking this team what it will take to make this idea a reality. What systems are affected? What people are affected? How would we all know the idea is working? Are there dependencies or priorities that would be affected by this change?
The outcome of this meeting is the initial implementation plan, but the value is more than that. By the time you’ve completed this process, you’ll have an idea that has been well vetted by the people most likely to be impacted, and you’ll have their buy-in and ownership of the idea. It’s no longer YOUR idea. It's OUR idea.
Decision Time
At this point, the investment and impact to the overall operations of the organization are low. And you can still stop the process here and regroup or discard the idea completely if needed with almost no risk.
Each progressive field test gives you data that you can use to assess and revise. It allows you to firm up your idea and get buy in and collaboration on how to actually implement the change. If you don’t see more agreement and less pushback at each test - you can stop and analyze and regroup.
When you have the idea reshaped, run the Field test process again. Use caution though - if you are continually looping through these tests, a couple of things could be in play. The idea could be not ready, or it could be that the idea isn’t perfect yet and you’re the type of person for whom that is a problem. Here’s the thing though - NO IDEA is perfect. Ever. Every process or policy or concept is a living thing that grows and matures and changes as your business changes. A new idea is young - and it needs experience - needs some exercise to give it muscle, and this won’t happen until you try the idea for real. At this stage, you’re ready for implementation, a process I like to call follow through.
We’ll talk about that more in the next article.
Photo by Jamie Street on Unsplash