In part 4 of this 5-part blog series about ‘Building a Culture of Optimization’ I’m going to talk about evangelizing your process within your organization. You can see part 1, part 2, & part 3 here.

Part 4: Evangelize the process

Process is important. Process leads to consistency, repeatability, and authority in a testing program.

Sharing that process and getting others in your organization bought in and supportive is even more important.

One source of truth

One of the best ways to make your optimization program better known within your organization is to evangelize it via a widely accessible & visible roadmap. Here’s an example roadmap that I use within my organization:

I host this roadmap in a Google doc that is accessible to everyone in my organization, from analysts to executives. This doc, however, is much more than just a roadmap. It also houses tabs that track all test variations with their descriptions, hypothesis, business justifications, launch dates, test plans, and results decks. Further, it has a tab for inputting new test ideas. Essentially, it’s a one stop shop for education, ideas, and answers.

Having this master test doc or roadmap easily accessible helps with process because it gives everyone a single place to go to for all the resources they might need when formulating, suggesting, or analyzing a test. From a management standpoint, it’s also really useful to be able to point everyone to one source of truth and doing so solidifies the consistency and repeatability aspects of a process.

Curious what a sample master doc looks like? Check out my example here: http://krsta.me/testroadmap

Different perspectives matter

The final point I will put forth about evangelizing your program is to bring everyone along. Several of the most impactful and significant tests we’ve run in my organization have been ideas sourced across my greater organization – from engineers, developers, and sales people. Of course we also get a lot of really great input from our marketing and analytics teammates, but the variety of perspectives and viewpoints from the greater org is a huge asset that it is important to tap into. Including a wider group into your test ideation and execution also helps solidify relationships across groups and leads to more productive projects down the road.

Part 5 of this 5-part blog series on ‘Building a Culture of Optimization’ will focus on evangelizing your wins and shifting your culture.

Happy testing!