When it comes to trying out new business models, improving customer experience or developing new products in multinationals, even the most experienced managers get it wrong. They discover that intuition, experience and big data alone do not really work. What does? Running disciplined business experiments.

The course content will be organized as follows:

Session 1:

- Course intro

- Why experimentation works

- How to run a good business experiment

- How to experiment online

- Example 1: 3M Post-it Notes

- Example 2: Experimentation in sport - New Zealand’s team at the America’s Cup

- Case study: Superb Trucks LP: How to conduct a field experiment

Session 2:

- Which organizational cultures can handle large-scale experimentation?

- The operating model of a true experiment organizations

- Lessons from MNCs using experiments in their every-day business: Airbnb, Amazon, ams AG and Intuit

- Case study: Booking.com

Session 3:

- How to become an experimental organization

- Lessons from IMB, Toyota, Pinterest and State Farm

- Experimenting within MNC organization

- Arguments against experimentation

- The future of experimentation

- First preparation for the final assignments

- WU Experimental lab(s) visit 

Session 4:

- Final preparation for the final assignments

- Q&A

Session 5:

- Final assignments’ presentations

This course will guide you through best practices in business experimentation and illustrate how these practices work in some of the leading companies, such as Amazon, Booking.com, Microsoft and others, which run thousands of different controlled experiments annually and engage millions of users.

It will answer some fundamental questions, such as:

- What makes a good experiment?

- How to run experimental tests in online and off-line business models?

- How to build a culture in companies that supports experimentation?

- How the future of experimentation in multinationals will look like and why we need to start preparing for it?

Upon successful completion of this course, you will:

1. Develop skills needed for running your own business experiments;

2. Be familiar with different business segments where experiments are suitable approach for testing and solving problems;

3. Understand different ways to develop an experimenting organization that puts experimentation in the center of its innovation process.

Regular attendance is required to pass this course (at least 80% of all classes).

This course is comprised of lectures, in-class case analyses, lab visit(s) and a team research experimental project. This is a highly interactive course. Thus, students are expected to be fully engaged during Q&A sessions and give their critical assessment both in oral and written form. All course documents, assignments, lecture notes, etc. will be posted on the course website on Learn@WU.

Assessment will be based on both individual and team performance.

Assignments with percent of total grade:
Class reports:                    15%

Case studies:                     40%

Group final assignment:   45%
 

The final grade will be based on the following total points out of 100:

· 90 - 100:              A

· 80 - 89:                B

· 70 - 79:                C

· 50 - 69:                D

· Less than 50:      F (Failed)

Please contact me via e-mail for an appointment, e-mail address: jelena.cerar@wu.ac.at