The Power of Experiments: Decision-Making in a Data-Driven World

How organizations—including Google, StubHub, Airbnb, and Facebook—learn from experiments in a data-driven world.

Have you logged into Facebook recently? Searched for something on Google? Chosen a movie on Netflix? If so, you've probably been an unwitting participant in a variety of experiments—also known as randomized controlled trials—designed to test the impact of different online experiences.

Once an esoteric tool for academic research, the randomized controlled trial has gone mainstream. No tech company worth its salt (or its share price) would dare make major changes to its platform without first running experiments to understand how they would influence user behavior. In this book, Michael Luca and Max Bazerman explain the importance of experiments for decision making in a data-driven world.

About the Authors

Michael Luca is Lee J. Styslinger III Associate Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. His writing has appeared in publications including the Atlantic, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and Slate.

Max H. Bazerman is Jesse Isidor Straus Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. He is the author of The Power of Noticing and the coauthor of Blind Spots, Negotiation Genius, and other books.

Reviews

"The Power of Experiments is a terrific overview of how organizations, especially online companies but also government and other groups, can use A/B testing to optimize their results. Luca and Bazerman also discuss issues of ethics and consent that affect these efforts, perhaps limiting what some parties can or should do... an excellent book for managers and executives who oversee online marketing or other behavioral elements of an operation. While most professional marketers will be familiar with the concepts and examples presented in the book, Luca and Bazerman's easy style and approachable writing provide an excellent introduction or refresher for non-specialists at all levels. Highly recommended." —Technology and Society

"Filled with charming stories of experiments offering novel solutions to pressing social questions, The Power of Experiments: Decision Making in a Data-Driven World is an enjoyable read that celebrates the power of experimentation to create social change." —Stanford Social Innovation Review

"The Power of Experiments is a fast, accessible read that offers a good overview of the applications, promise, and perils of experimentation. It's a good place for executives to start as they consider whether and how to use experiments inside their companies." —Strategy and Business

"One of the great things about e-commerce is that it is far easier to run experiments online than offline. As more and more companies move online, they need to learn how to use this powerful tool. This book shows how to take advantage of experiments and how this will revolutionize business, both online and off." —Hal Varian, Chief Economist, Google

Dimensions: 15.24 x 1.27 x 22.71 cm