Remember high school science class? That faint smell of Bunsen burners, the nervous laughter when someone “accidentally” mixed two chemicals that really shouldn’t have met… good times.
You started with a hypothesis—if I do X, then Y will happen. Then you built an experiment to test it. You didn’t just start pouring things into beakers (well, not if you wanted to keep your eyebrows). You figured out what you were testing, how you’d measure success, and what the data would tell you.
Setting up a business process works exactly the same way.
Start With the Hypothesis
Every process starts with an assumption—a theory you’re trying to prove. Maybe you believe that if you handle invoices a certain way, you’ll get paid faster. Or you think that if you tweak your onboarding steps, customers will stick around longer.
That’s your experiment. But before you hit “go,” you need to define what success looks like. Otherwise, you’re just throwing variables into the mix and hoping it turns out fine. It won’t. Hope isn’t a metric.
Know What You’re Measuring
Scientists don’t just say, “Let’s see what happens.” They define variables—what they can control, what they’re observing, and what they’ll measure.
In operations, it’s the same idea. You need to know what your inputs are—the resources or actions you control. You need to define your outputs—the measurable results you care about. And you need to understand the noise—the things you can’t control but have to account for.
If you can’t measure it, you can’t improve it. Period.
Run the Test—Then Watch Closely
Once the process is live, observe it like a scientist. Collect data. See how it performs. And for the love of efficiency, don’t change five things at once and then wonder what made the difference.
Give it time to run. Watch the metrics. Look for patterns. That’s your data story.
Refine, Don’t Redesign
Here’s the secret: every great process is really just version 1.0 of the next great process. You test, learn, adjust, and try again.
It’s less about perfection and more about iteration. That’s where the magic happens—the small tweaks that turn a clunky workflow into a well-oiled system.
So when something doesn’t work, don’t get frustrated. You didn’t fail. You just collected more data.
The Big Picture
Treating operations like a science experiment shifts your mindset from “let’s hope this works” to “let’s learn what works.”
It replaces guesswork with curiosity and turns your business into a living, learning organism—one that’s constantly improving based on evidence, not gut feel.
So the next time you’re designing a process, grab your metaphorical lab coat. Form your hypothesis. Define your variables. Measure your results.
And remember: the best operators aren’t just managing workflows—they’re running experiments that make the whole system smarter.