Free Resource: Experimentation Field Guide

I'm delighted to announce the release of the Field Guide to Experimentation which I developed for Monash University's School of Art Design & Architecture (MADA).

The field guide is a resource for MADA faculty to support the continuation of design-based experimentation amongst their research labs, which I have been working with them on over the last 18 months. However, it has been written as an open resource for others to use.

What's in the field guide?

The field guide centers on an experimentation process I developed and delivered to the research labs in 2018.

It includes a range of activities to support the exploration of:

• The value a project creates
• How that value is created
• Highlight assumptions about how that value is created
• How to test those assumptions, generate (research) momentum, and document insights.

Who is the field guide for?

My commitment over the last 10+ years has been to put as much as possible of my work into the public domain, to help people who I'm not able to work with directly still benefit from my own exploration.

This project is no different. I'm delighted to say that Monash University agreed to the licensing of this project under Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Whilst this resource frequently references our work together, my hope is that it can be used by other people and organisations exploring how practice rooted in experimentation can be used to better work on complex challenges and exploratory research.

So please do use this field guide under any way you like, permitted under this license.

What did I do?

My work with Monash spanned:

• Designing the framework for experimentation capability building
• Designing a capability building program, focused around a workshop and coaching sessions.
• Delivering the capability building program to three different research labs.
• Delivering the Field Guide for people to reflect on the experimentation process we used (and find out more about it), use it again, and guide others through it.

Any thoughts?

If you've got any questions or reflections, please don't hesitate to get in touch.