Ways to destroy an experimentation culture

Koalatative's Gerda Thomas and Experiment Nation's Rommil Santiago answer your CRO questions

An ongoing series that will go on until one of us is tired of answering questions.

Koalatative's Gerda Thomas and Experiment Nation's Rommil Santiago answer CRO questions from the community.

Chapters

• 0:00 – Photography, overthinking, and creative process

• 1:26 – Back to CRO: what’s happening in the industry

• 2:07 – AI concerns and job market anxiety

• 2:45 – The “everything looks the same” AI problem

• 4:00 – Too many AI tools, no real differentiation

• 5:38 – What people are really asking about AI

• 6:23 – AI fear vs reality (and layoffs)

• 7:08 – Fear-mongering vs signal

• 8:00 – Fear and decision-making

• 9:00 – CRO team structures: centralized, hybrid, embedded

• 9:31 – Why centralized works early

• 10:08 – When to move to hybrid

• 10:29 – Why embedded is hard

• 11:04 – The role of leadership buy-in

• 12:13 – Why experimentation gets cut first

• 13:00 – CRO’s “nice-to-have” branding problem

• 14:00 – Why CRO is easy to underestimate

• 15:45 – Future-proofing: combine CRO with other skills

• 16:54 – Building experimentation culture (the “laundry” analogy)

• 18:19 – How to destroy experimentation culture

• 19:23 – Why authority and buy-in matter

• 20:25 – How ICs can influence culture

• 21:34 – Reframing experimentation as empowerment

• 23:09 – Becoming a catalyst across teams

• 24:46 – Confidence and presence in CRO roles

• 25:59 – CRO vs Growth: what’s the difference?

• 27:24 – Where CRO fits inside growth teams

• 28:02 – Moving CRO upstream into systems thinking

• 29:00 – Closing thoughts