About this podcast
In our latest Design Thinkers podcast we explore the importance of experimentation in business. We are on a quest to find out:
- What do we mean by experiments in business?
- Why should business leaders care?
- What does a good business experiment look like?
- And, most practically of all, how you run effective business experiments?
The podcast guests today - Natalie Foley, David Kester and Alan Penlington - are well-placed to answer these questions. They are all involved in a new book - The Experimentation Field Book published by Columbia University Press.
Natalie Foley and David Kester who feature, are two of the four co-authors alongside Professors Jeanne Liedtka and Elizabeth Chen, whilst one of Alan Penlington’s projects for British train company, South Western Railway, is featured in the book.
With examples from Virgin Atlantic, Nike and South Western Rail, this podcas looks at why businesses need to run experiments and how to do them well.
About the guests
Natalie Foley is Director at social enterprise startup Opportunity@Work and former CEO at innovation firm Peer Insight, whose specialism is running business experiments.
David Kester is the founder of design firm, DK&A and Design Thinkers Academy London. He is a former Chief Executive of the UK Design Council. His design practice helps businesses define new propositions through market experiments.
Alan Penlington is a multi-industry leader of Customer Experience. He won his spurs at Virgin Atlantic and went on to Board-level roles running transformation projects in the transport sector.
“The failure is not testing your hypothesis. You wouldn’t do that in science, so why would you do that in business?” Natalie Foley
