A Cosy Fireside Chat Around Experimentation

Some have described the fireplace backdrop as we talked to Stewart Ehoff a corny approach to the topic. And while that may be true, it was an opportunity to chat to one of the country's most experienced people when it comes to growth and developing a team of people who can drive growth with an experimentation mindset.

Our host was Steve Burt whose expert probing was akin to that of the classic chat show host as he put both the audience and Stewart at ease in the cosy, friendly atmosphere created in the Flutter offices in Leeds.

Steve explored a bit of Stewarts background and some of the lessons that were learnt on the way to developing an award winning experimentation programme. Inevitably it touched on the required buy-in from senior leadership and veered towards the ever looming spectre that is Ai.

Steve Burt chats to Stewart Ehoff in a suitable warm environment for February in Leeds.

We were also very pleased to welcome Jonny Longden who shared his Experimentation Operating System (XOS). A man with nearly two decades worth of experience, he has had various roles across the digital space working at and with some of the biggest companies in the country such as SKY, Boohoo and O2. Currently at Speero he is Chief Growth Officer supporting businesses growth and advocating for experimentation to be used as a proper method of iterative discovery.

It was inevitable that a man who had been in the space for such a long time was able to chart the evolution of CRO efforts and expertly separated the important difference between experiments and experimentation. Citing the Apollo Space Programme as a wonderful example of experimentation shows just how impactful this methodical learning can be.

He introduced the operating system which supports management of the entire workflow from idea to decision. But also skilfully called out the prevalent feature first approach which remains the dominant model in so many businesses.

He shared some examples of how this works in practice and the importance of systems thinking rather than focusing on metrics (and inevitably bottom line!). But perhaps most importantly how this all fits together to drive effective decision making.

Check out our pictures from the event: