Ever since I discovered Anne-Laure Le Cunff’s idea of tiny experiments, I’ve been a little bit obsessed. The kind of obsession where suddenly every challenge becomes a “hmm… what if I tried this tiny thing for a week and just saw what happens?”

For those of us in L&D, especially the brave souls working alone or in tiny teams, this mindset is magic. We carry so much responsibility: build the leadership pipeline, redesign onboarding, drive a learning culture, measure ROI, and keep everyone engaged. It’s a lot.

Tiny experiments offer relief. They replace pressure with curiosity. Instead of committing to big initiatives with uncertain outcomes, we get to run small tests, gather insights, and adjust based on evidence, not hope.

Before we dive into the list of experiments, here are three things worth knowing.

What tiny experiments are

Tiny experiments are small, low-stakes tests that help you learn something about your learners, your culture, or your systems. They’re time-boxed, specific, and intentionally light to run.

They’re not meant to change the whole organization overnight. They’re meant to help you discover what works here, with your people, in your context.

Tiny steps. Real signals. Quick learning.

How they differ from goals

A goal says: “I want to increase participation in L&D.”

A tiny experiment says: “If I send one short learning prompt each week for three weeks, participation in at least one activity will increase.”

Goals are big, often vague destinations. Tiny experiments are the small steps that teach you the path.

Goals give direction, experiments give information.

And for L&D professionals constantly navigating ambiguity, experiments create forward motion without the anxiety of “getting it right.”

PACT: the structure behind tiny experiments

Anne-Laure uses the PACT framework, which stands for:

• Purposeful — The action is connected to a meaningful hypothesis you want to test.
• Actionable — You know exactly what you will do; it’s concrete, not conceptual.
• Continuous — You repeat the same action consistently for a short period.
• Trackable — You can observe what happens and learn from the outputs.

A tiny experiment follows a simple format:

“I will [action] for [duration/ trials]”

No need for big plans or perfect conditions. Just a tiny, structured step into the unknown that makes uncertainty feel manageable.

10 tiny experiments to grow as an L&D

1. Meeting a colleague from another team (30 min/day)

I will meet one colleague from another team for 30 minutes each day for one week to test whether regular cross-team exposure helps me better understand how the organization really works.

Cross-functional conversations are one of the fastest ways to build real organizational intelligence, the kind that doesn’t show up in documentation or strategy decks. By meeting someone from another team every day, you begin to see how work truly flows, where friction lives, and what people actually care about.

This tiny experiment creates daily bursts of insight and helps L&D understand the system from multiple angles. It also builds relationships that make your work easier later: better buy-in, faster clarity, richer collaboration. And all of it comes from just 30 minutes a day.

2. Joining another team’s meetings for a month

I will attend one weekly meeting from a team I want to understand better for one month to test whether observing their rituals helps me identify real learning needs.

Watching a team in action is like lifting the curtain on how culture actually works. Their language, their decisions, the way they problem-solve, it all gives you insights you could never discover through formal needs analysis.

This experiment is immersive without being overwhelming: one meeting, once a week. Over a month, patterns begin to emerge. You’ll notice where skill gaps show up, how leaders behave, where people hesitate, and what’s valued. It’s quiet, observational learning at its best.

3. Weekly external peer chat

I will have one 20-minute chat per week with an external L&D peer for four weeks to test whether outside perspectives improve my thinking and expand my idea pool.

Talking to someone outside your organization is like opening a window and letting fresh air in. Suddenly you hear about different approaches, different constraints, different clever hacks. It frees you from the echo chamber of “how we do things here.”

Twenty minutes is all it takes. You'll gather new ideas, benchmark your challenges, and feel less alone in your L&D-of-one world. It’s simple, energizing, and surprisingly grounding.

4. Daily LinkedIn post

I will write one short LinkedIn post each day for one week to test whether public reflection helps me articulate what I’m learning more clearly.

Writing forces clarity. It helps you make sense of what you noticed, what surprised you, and what you want to remember. A daily LinkedIn post becomes a public learning diary, tiny, consistent, reflective.

You don’t need to write anything profound. Simply capturing one insight per day sharpens your thinking and builds your voice as an L&D professional. Plus, posting publicly creates gentle accountability to keep learning alive.

5. Daily TED Talk

I will watch one TED Talk per day on a selected topic for five days to test whether short, curated inspiration broadens my perspective.

TED Talks are bite-sized sparks, perfect for nudging your thinking in new directions without demanding huge time commitments. Five to twenty minutes a day can introduce you to concepts that reshape how you see leadership, creativity, AI, communication, or culture.

This experiment works because it’s structured and narrow. Choose one theme (like leadership or psychology) and let the algorithm guide you. You’ll notice your creativity waking up and your mental library expanding effortlessly.

6. The 10-Minute Book Dip

I will read for 10 minutes from any book in my professional library each day for one week to test whether small dips help me absorb more knowledge than long, irregular reading sessions.

We all have shelves full of books we meant to read, and yet life happens. The 10-minute dip removes the pressure of finishing books and replaces it with small, joyful encounters with ideas. Ten minutes is tiny, achievable, and surprisingly impactful.

It’s also a beautiful way to reconnect with physical books or Kindle highlights. You’ll revisit ideas you’d forgotten, discover passages you missed, and reignite your curiosity with no perfectionism attached.

7. Meditation for 10 minutes

I will meditate for 10 minutes each day for one week to test whether a simple mindfulness practice improves my clarity and emotional regulation at work.

L&D work is often emotionally heavy, supporting people, navigating politics, managing expectations. Meditation creates a small daily pause where you reset your nervous system and return to your work with more presence and less noise.

You don’t need an app, a playlist, or monk-like commitment. Ten minutes is enough to soften reactivity, sharpen listening, and make you more grounded as a facilitator, coach, or partner.

8. One walking meeting per week

I will turn one meeting per week into a walking meeting for six weeks to test whether movement helps me think more clearly and listen more deeply.

Walking meetings change the tone of conversations. They’re more relaxed, more human, and often more honest. Movement helps ideas flow and removes the intensity that sitting across a table can create.

This experiment is tiny but powerful. One walking meeting per week is easy to integrate, especially 1:1s. Over six weeks, you’ll likely notice better conversations, more energy, and even better relationship building.

9. “10 Experts in 10 Conversations” Experiment

I will speak with 10 experts for 30 minutes each over the next two weeks to test whether concentrated exposure accelerates my learning in a topic I want to master.

This is a fast-track learning sprint. Instead of slowly consuming content, you’re directly tapping into lived expertise. Ten short conversations expose you to diverse perspectives, practical stories, and nuanced thinking that no book or course can replicate.

Choose a topic you want to deepen, AI, leadership, facilitation, learning culture, and curate your expert list. By the end, you’ll feel like you’ve lived inside that domain for weeks, not days.

10. The One-Skill Sprint

I will practice one micro-skill for five minutes each day for one week to test whether focused repetition leads to noticeable improvement.

Micro-skills are the hidden engines of good L&D work: asking better questions, summarizing clearly, giving feedback, reading a room, designing prompts. Practicing one skill in tiny daily doses creates visible progress incredibly fast.

This experiment is liberating because it removes the overwhelm of “becoming better” and focuses on improvement through playful, low-stakes repetition. Five minutes a day is enough to feel momentum.

10 tiny experiments to improve your L&D practice

1. Pre-Training Questions Experiment

I will send a short list of diagnostic questions every time someone asks for training for the next four weeks to test whether better questions lead to clearer needs.

Most training requests arrive half-baked, vague, or based on assumptions. Sending a few simple questions, “What problem are you trying to solve?”, “What would success look like?”, “What have you already tried?”, helps you surface the root issue before saying yes or no. Often, the request changes completely once the requester slows down and reflects.

This tiny experiment helps you understand how your stakeholders think about performance, capability gaps, and responsibility. Over a few weeks, you’ll start noticing patterns: where clarity is missing, what people assume L&D is for, and how often requests are actually symptoms of deeper issues.

2. Post-Program Drop-In Chats

I will meet one former participant from a large program each week for 15 minutes for six weeks to test whether short follow-ups reveal what truly sticks after training.

Impact doesn’t show up in evaluations, it shows up weeks or months later in how people behave. These tiny drop-in chats give you a real window into what participants actually kept, applied, struggled with, or ignored. You get honest stories, not survey ticks.

This experiment helps you understand what parts of the program mattered and what people forgot the moment the session ended. These quick, casual conversations often reveal the conditions that helped (or blocked) transfer, gold for future program design.

3. Weekly Metric Scan

I will analyze one L&D metric per week for six weeks to test whether small, consistent analysis leads to better prioritization.

Instead of staring at dashboards in a big quarterly review, this experiment makes metrics feel manageable and useful. One week you review completion rates; another week you look at who logs in; another you explore NPS comments. Each scan reveals one insight you can act on.

The value isn’t in the numbers, it’s in noticing how the system behaves. Over time you start building a sharper, data-informed intuition about what needs attention next, without ever feeling overwhelmed.

4. 10-Day Blocker Map

I will meet one colleague per day for 10 working days to test whether listening for learning blockers reveals systemic patterns.

L&D often hears generic complaints. "People don’t have time,” “managers don’t support learning.” But when you ask individuals directly, in short conversations, you uncover specific, actionable blockers: confusing tools, unclear expectations, fear of judgment, process gaps.

After 10 days, you’ll have a simple map of what's in the way of learning in your company. Not theoretical obstacles, but real ones. This experiment gives you clarity on where friction truly lives, and which levers would create the biggest shift.

5. Mentorship Micro-Match

I will pair two people for one week and ask them to meet for 20 minutes to test whether micro-mentoring helps build meaningful connections and capability sharing.

Traditional mentoring programs can feel heavy and formal. A tiny one-week micro-match removes the pressure and lets people try the experience without commitment. Surprisingly often, even a single 20-minute conversation leads to insights, shared challenges, or unexpected support.

For you, this experiment reveals whether people in your organization want mentoring, enjoy it, or get value from it, without having to build a whole program. It’s a fast signal of appetite, culture, and readiness.

6. Quote-First Calendar Invites

I will begin every session invite with a quote from a colleague for one month to test whether adding humanity changes how people perceive learning sessions.

Starting a calendar invite with something personal, a participant quote, a learner insight, a mini-story, shifts the tone from transactional to human. It breaks the cold, corporate rhythm of “Training: Communication Skills.” It makes learning feel real and grounded in lived experience.

Over a month, you’ll observe whether people respond differently. Do more attend? Do they mention the quotes? Does it create curiosity? This tiny tweak helps you understand what tone resonates inside your culture.

7. AI Use-Case Week

I will run a one-week program where one person shares their AI use-case for 20 minutes each day to test whether peer learning accelerates AI adoption.

People learn AI fastest by seeing what peers do, not by watching tutorials. Five short sessions in a row, each featuring a different colleague, creates rapid momentum and lowers the barrier to experimentation. It also spotlights internal innovation you may not even know is happening.

For L&D, this experiment reveals who the informal champions are, which use-cases are resonating, and where people still feel stuck. You’ll see which topics generate questions, enthusiasm, or overwhelm, insights you can build on.

8. Micro-Diary of Repeated Questions

I will track every repeated L&D question I receive for 10 days to test whether the patterns reveal gaps in communication, clarity, or processes.

When multiple people ask the same question, it’s rarely a coincidence, it’s a signal. Keeping a simple log for 10 days shows you what people don’t understand, what’s confusing, or what information isn’t reaching them.

This experiment helps you see clarity gaps immediately. You’ll quickly identify which FAQs need documentation, which processes need simplification, or which messages aren’t landing. It’s insight hiding in plain sight.

9. One-Topic Focus Month

I will pick one capability topic and ask about it everywhere for a month to test whether repeated exposure reveals cross-team patterns.

Choosing one topic, feedback, decision-making, communication, prioritization, and asking the same questions everywhere creates a rich, multi-angled understanding of how that capability shows up across the business. It’s like taking an X-ray of one skill.

By the end of the month, you’ll notice patterns: which teams excel, where misunderstandings live, where desire exists, and where resistance hides. This experiment reveals the capability landscape more effectively than any large needs analysis.

10. Daily Task-Energy Log

I will log the tasks that took the most time or energy each day for 30 days to test whether identifying drains helps me optimize my L&D workflow.

Not all tasks are created equal. Some drain you. Some energize you. Some take 20 minutes; others disappear your entire afternoon. Tracking this for 30 days helps you spot inefficiencies, automation opportunities, and areas where small process changes could give you hours back each week.

This experiment teaches you something essential: what your work really looks like versus what you think it looks like. You’ll gain clarity about what needs to change, or what needs to stop, to run L&D sustainably.

Conclusion: Treat these as experiments, not commitments

The beauty of tiny experiments is that they ask so little of us, just a small action, repeated for a short period of time, yet they often teach us more than any long-term initiative ever could. They aren’t promises. They aren’t new routines you’re expected to keep forever. They’re simply invitations to notice. To test. To pay attention.

At the end of each experiment, the real work is in the reflection: What did I learn? What surprised me? What shifted? What didn’t matter at all?

Some experiments will confirm what you already suspected. Others will contradict your assumptions entirely. A few will pay off so beautifully that you’ll want to scale them, but only after you know they work in your context.

Because this is the magic of tiny experiments in L&D: they free us from the pressure of getting it right the first time. Instead, they help us learn our way forward, gently, curiously, and one tiny step at a time.