Organizing Experiments

Utilizing the AFTER Model

The Problem

When you work in a discovery-driven and evidence-guided manner, you are always learning, exploring, and testing. It’s iterative; things change. You’re always learning and evolving. This can make communication and maintaining alignment a challenge.

Slide decks with lots of arrows, circles, or nebulous shapes that we point to and say, ‘It’s not linear!’ or more generally, “It’s iterative!” work for overviews or executive decks, but they aren’t detailed enough for a project team. Tasks lists and project plans are too detailed and lack the context of the overall approach. The working team, the ones exploring a hypothesis or iterating towards a goal, need a framework for managing their work that gives them a process, a context, and the details they need.

AFTER Model

The AFTER model (Assessment, Fact finding, Tests, Experiments, Release results), created by Itamar Gilad, organizes the progression from “I know nothing” to “I know a lot”:

How It Works

• The AFTER process is shown in yellow across the bottom. That remains the same throughout all projects. The aqua boxes above it change. At each step in the process, the team determines what needs to be done, and then does it. The steps in the…