What will we do if it fails?

Background: Following a large-scale system replacement project, a team was operating under crisis conditions to fix and release rapid changes to the company's online shop and self-service site.

Approach: With the thinking 'never let a good crisis go to waste', we designed a safe-to-fail experiment that would see this team combine with a Business Owner and connect with a cross-functional 'crew' of business stakeholders. These folks started to prioritise the work, and work alongside the team to design the changes and flow them into the business and out to customers. My favourite part of the experiment design was the way that the stakeholders talked about failure. As you'll see from the post-it notes, we had a (slightly humorous, slightly true) conversation about what really could happen if we fail - and then we put it up on the wall for everyone to see!

Outcome: After just three months of operating, the work of the Online Stream (team+crew) was set to realise $684,000 in annualised cost savings by shifting transactions from Customer Care to the self-service portal.