The playbook aims to support government teams embarking on test-and-learn projects. It explains in detail how to build and run public policies and services using a test-and-learn approach, setting out a wide range of specific methodologies that practitioners can draw on at each stage of the innovation cycle. It’s intended as a practical resource for teams looking to design and test solutions in an outcomes-driven way.

Test and learn is an iterative approach to public policy and service development. Test-and-learn approaches can be used for almost any policy, service or program. 

Conventional policymaking typically uses a step-by-step process where most of the big choices are made upfront. Instead, government should adopt an iterative approach, starting small, testing critical assumptions early and often through rapid learning cycles, and learning from real-world delivery. Robust evidence informs early design, and appropriate evaluation methods assess whether optimised policies and programs are achieving results.

Test and learn can help mitigate risky policy and funding decisions, avoid the ‘sunk cost’ fallacy, and achieve impact and change at scale quicker and more cost-effectively than current ways of working. 

The playbook provides United Kingdom (UK) case studies and identifies what an ambitious UK government test and learn program would look like.