Tom,
Actually, I/we believe that what we are doing is learning. Our
large-scale design is to learn more about the business, apply what we
learn, and learn more. The experiments are a part of a fabric. Is that
what you mean when you say "each [experiment] is part of a larger
sequential learning design."
Part of keeping our experiments in view is for our own good. It is always
difficult to acknowledge failure, and if we are not public about our
experiments, the temptation to ignore it and pretend the failure never
happened is just too overwhelming.
We are in a web of motivations!
-- Rol Fessenden LL Bean, Inc 76234.3636@compuserve.com