Small bets

The eight of chalks signals, swiftly unfolding events, constant developments, and positive rapid change. You have a steady stream of ideas you can test out. The emphasis is on change and the challenge of keeping up with it. Take note of what works and what does not and learn all you can from your successful experiences. You are going to take lots of small bets.

Placing small bets was one of the most effective lessons I learnt from my time at Energized Work. Which as Simon Baker one of the founders put it, ‘I came up with it having read the book Little Bets (Little Bets: How breakthrough ideas emerge from small discoveries by Peter Sims). Of course it’s not a new concept but it provides a layman’s language to convey risk, return and iterative development in a simple phrase.’

It was how Energized Work worked everyday, make many small and quick bets at the start when uncertainty is high. So if you get it wrong there is less of a problem. This reduces risk as you find your way. As your bets begin to begin to become winners, you can increase your stake. You are constantly trying to reduce uncertainty and risk and at the same time you are ‘learning your way forward’. Increase the stakes as you learn more about what works (winning bets) and what doesn’t (loosing bets). Lots of people claim to work this way very few do.

Lean UX I think addresses some of this, which is about UX working well with an agile development process where everything is about small, continuous feedback loops, Lean UX describes this as a Think, Make, Check loop. But I also think small bets allows you to build out your product in a very flexible way. Adding and subtracting features as you go along.