The goal of this interview series is to inspire and help people to transition their career into a new or next experimentation related role. In this edition Anastasia Shvedova shares her journey. Anastasia is a Senior Consultant at konversionsKRAFT.
I think it is important to show what you stand for and what mindset you have, because I believe that experimentation is to a high extent about the mindset.
Anastasia Shvedova
Please introduce yourself to our readers.
Hi everyone, my name is Anastasia and I have been developing my expertise in E-Commerce for the past 10 years. I gained the largest part of my experience in product management and over recent years I have been focusing on the pivotal role of experimentation in product development in particular.
What is your current experimentation role and what do you do?
I am working as a senior consultant for conversion optimization and experimentation driven product management. That practically means that I am taking care of a few clients and supporting them with various experimentation-related projects. The topics vary from establishing customer-centricity mindset to the regular support with the classic A/B testing programs.
How did you enter the experimentation space? What was your first experimentation related role? Share your origin story here.
I remember the first time I read an article about A/B testing once I was in my early PM career – I think it was around 2014. I was so excited about the fact that you can take product and business decisions based on real customer feedback. This feeling of excitement has never left me. Unfortunately, it was not that easy to just try A/B testing at that time, since there was not always a tool for it in every company.
I entered the experimentation space when my previous company took a strategic decision to create a product team with the focus on CRO. I was a PM in the new setup and was responsible for building the processes in the team together with my UX & PO colleagues. This was the first time I had a chance to work on CRO with full focus and not treating it as a side topic.
From that moment on I knew I cannot imagine doing any job without having a strong experimentation component in it.
How did you start to learn experimentation?
In the beginning I was just learning by doing in my role as a product manager, but it was more about high frequency testing without a focus on growth metrics. After that I had a chance to learn the basic experimentation process when we hired a CRO agency in one of my previous companies. That company has also introduced me to CXL and I learned a lot from their course.
How do you apply experimentation in your personal life? (what are you tinkering with or always optimizing?)
Such an interesting question. I would say I am trying to apply experimentation or rather a data-driven approach on my nutrition. I regularly look at the blood indicators to adjust my food plan accordingly. I can see the direct effect from it on my skin and general health situation.
What are you currently doing to keep up with the ever-changing industry?
Following the experimentation content and CRO thought leaders on LinkedIn to see what the CRO-bubble is talking about and what topics attract most of the attention. I sometimes check the new courses on CXL and try to integrate them into my self-development plan.
What recommendations would you give to someone who is looking to join the experimentation industry and get their first full-time position?
I think it is important to show what you stand for and what mindset you have, because I believe that experimentation is to a high extent about the mindset. The concrete advice is to develop a set of beliefs you have when it comes to user-centricity and experimentation in addition to your actual experimentation skills. Another thing I would highly recommend is taking some certification that shows you proficiency in the topic, since it will show that you take this topic seriously and treat it as an alone-standing discipline.
Which developments in experimentation excite you? How do you see the field changing in the next 5 to 10 years?
I think we will continue to observe more acceptance of experimentation and more understanding of the rational need behind it. Furthermore I assume that with that understanding CRO will become less of an alone standing discipline and it will get naturally integrated into the other departments. Last but not least, of course I think we can not avoid the impact of AI on the whole experimentation process – from research to data analysis and to ideas generation.
What I think will not change is that some companies will still perceive experimentation as something that slows the processes down. Because unless someone 100% understands the basics of experimentation, they will treat it exclusively as a philosophical decision.
Is there anything people reading this can help you with? Or any parting words?
I would be happy to have an exchange with everyone who is currently trying or already has successfully managed to integrate experimentation into the product development process. It would be exciting to hear about the related struggles and the methods you are currently playing around with.
Which other experimenters would you love to read an interview by?
Daphne Tideman and André Vieira – just to name a few.
Thank you Anastasia for sharing your journey and insights.
