5. Discover the way forward with Experiments

Written by the Upperstory team

What is an Experiment?

An experiment is small test designed to validate an idea or assumption to see if it is correct or not.

Why run Experiments?

Each day we make decisions that effect the potential success of our ideas, products and businesses but more often than not these decisions are based on assumptions, things we believe to be true, but don't actually have proof to give us surety.

How to create an Experiment

Experiments in Upperstory live inside of Goals. If you haven't created a Goal yet, go ahead and create your first Goal. Every Experiment needs a Goal, the Goal being the objective, outcome or purpose for running the Experiment.

There are 2 ways in Upperstory to create Experiments.

Option 1: Make an experiment inside a Goal

Navigate to Goals using the sidebar.
Select a Goal, or Create a new Goal.
Click on the Add Experiment button.

Option 2: Quickly brainstorm experiments from the Experiment Board

Navigate to Experiments using the sidebar.
Click on the Add Experiment button.

Upperstory experiment interface — Product screenshot used as a local visual reference; archived Intercom inline images were not recoverable as image files.

New Experiment

Clicking the Add Experiment button will open a modal. Below is a breakdown of the fields and options.

Purpose: Why are you running this Experiment? Help your team understand the reason this could be valuable.

Hypothesis: What do you believe to be true and what are you trying to validate.

Goal: These are the Goals your team has created. Tip: If you want to add to a goal that doesn't exist yet simply type the goals name and it will be created when you save the experiment.

Running your Experiment

Once you have created your experiment it will be set to Paused and added to your backlog.

There are four states for an Experiment.

Paused - This is an experiment you have in your backlog, but is not currently being worked on by your team.

Active - You or you team are activity running this experiment.

Invalid - The evidence came back telling you your hypothesis and expected outcome where not true. This is a good indicator that you should consider running another experiment, pivoting on your assumptions slightly or change track altogether.

Valid - Your assumption was correct and the evidence is telling you to move forward. Either go to town and start building or move on and validate the next part of the chain.

Whats Next?

Set your Experiment to Active and start adding notes and gathering evidence.