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Your Weekly Dose of Experimentation – Growing Adoption
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August 19, 2025 Happy Tuesday, today’s smart brevity count is: 756 words, 5.5 mins. Edited by Nils Koppelmann. Today's theme: Growing Adoption In today's newsletter, we will go over:
Excited? Read on. 1 big thing: Structuring Experimentation for Impact: Moving Beyond the FlywheelStrategic Insights for Experimentation Leaders Experimentation has become the currency of innovation. Organizations from tech giants to ambitious scale-ups are betting on data-informed decisions to drive growth, resilience, and customer-centricity. But as the recent study Aligning Experimentation with Product Operations: A Taxonomy for Structuring Experimentation Teams (Stotz, Labay, Vermeer & Drews, 2025) shows, the challenge isn’t whether to experiment—it’s how to structure experimentation so it works with, not against, your operating model. Beyond the FlywheelFor years, models like the A/B Testing Flywheel have guided companies toward scaling experimentation. The idea: more tests → more learnings → more investment → more scale. But this assumes a one-size-fits-all maturity path. Reality is messier. Experimentation success depends less on test volume and more on the interaction between organizational structures and operating models. Without alignment, volume just amplifies inefficiencies. A Taxonomy for Experimentation TeamsThe research introduces a multi-dimensional taxonomy that maps team structures (centralized, decentralized, Center of Excellence) against operating models (Product Operating vs. Feature-Management). Out of this come four distinct quadrants. [This paper just got out and to respect that I want to encourage you to go give it a thorough read, beyond just the headline, hence I'm not including the full breakdown of the taxonomy here.] Why this mattersThe taxonomy reveals a key truth: scaling experimentation isn’t linear—it’s contextual. The path forward depends on where you start and the operating model you’re running. For example, a centralized team in a product-led org can decentralize effectively by layering in a Center of Excellence. But a feature-driven org trying to decentralize without shifting its operating model risks chaos and weak results. In practice, this means:
The question for leaders isn’t “How many experiments are we running?” but rather: “Is our organizational model helping experimentation shape strategy—or just rubber-stamping it?”
With this context I highly encourage you to go read the paper and share it with colleagues. 2. Case Study on Celebrating ExperimentationCelebrate those who're driving experimentation and inspire more Culture can make or break the progress in or even the entire existence of experimentation in your organization. Celebrating experimentation and the teams contributing to the motion can be a real driver as I've seen first hand in various organizations. There are many ways to gamify and celebrate experimentation, one that I see more regularly now is competition like in this example at Flight Story: ”It’s not just a ‘thanks’ message in Slack. It’s a giant trophy, a team celebration and a voucher for the winner 🏆 [...] Experimentation is part of our culture at FlightStory and something everyone in the team should be contributing to, so that’s why we celebrate it!” – Grace Miller, Head of Failure and Experimentation at Flight Story Make sure to read the full post and also explore the comment section to see how much people love these ideas. And please also take this as inspiration to share your own wins and ways of celebrating experimentation in your org! 3. Your new job in experimentation?This week’s featured roles:
Couldn't find a job that's interesting to you? Check out more here. 4. World class eventsUpcoming conferences in in 2025:
Find more events over at lu.ma/experimentation-events. That's a wrap – until next week. – Nils P.S.: If you enjoyed this, please consider sharing with a friend. If a friend sent you this, get the next newsletter by signing up here. Also, for more resources and content follow me on LinkedIn. |
Hi! I'm Nils Koppelmann
I'm a entrepreneur, marketer, and author who loves to talk about business & entrepreneurship, technology, and science. Subscribe and join over 600+ newsletter readers every week!
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