How Can Implementing the 3X Methodology Lead to Success in Your Business?

If you were starting a business, expanding their organization or launching a new product idea, you would ideally start with a business plan.  Business plans help focus their company outlook and give clarity to their purpose. However, creating a business plan can be daunting, and some may not know where to start.  The same goes for direction. People have ideas of building solutions for the market, but some may not know how to narrow the scope to the smartest solution. These types of things are critical for success in business. 

The 3X Methodology: An Overview 

For those seeking guidance on building a business plan and finding the smartest solution for a demand in the market, the 3X Methodology is a great place to start. Kent Beck discovered this methodology when he noticed that Facebook did things differently and distinguished three key phases of a winning idea. 

Beck was a programmer, coach and mentor of programmers for about 11 years and is now independent on public speaking tours, authoring a new book and continuing to coach and mentor successful teams worldwide.  He is known for his contributions in software development: 

• Patterns for software 

• The rediscovery of test-first programming 

• The xUnit family of developer testing tools 

• Extreme programming 

Beck is also the author/co-author of Implementation Patterns, Extreme Programming Explained: Embrace Change 2nd Edition, Contributing to Eclipse, Test-Driven Development: By Example, Planning Extreme Programming, Smalltalk Best Practice Patterns and the JUnit Pocket Guide. 

What Is This 3X Methodology? 

The 3X Methodology, “Explore, Expand, Extract”, is a thinking model which helps to better understand and adapt to changing contexts, as you take your ideas on a journey down a winning path for the success of your business. This is very applicable to several business settings because it helps bring direction, focus and alignment. High-level executives as well as product management, developers, people in operations and others can benefit from this methodology. As Beck explains: 

Explore  

This stage involves conducting experiments while minimizing the costs as much as possible and applying the insights learned into actionable steps. 

“The risky search for a viable return on a viable investment [via experimentation]. … If you’re lucky, one of these experiments turns out to be unexpectedly successful, which leads to Expand” 

Expand  

In the expansion phase, you experience rapid growth and may encounter unforeseen challenges along the way. 

“Now things are going nuts. … Unanticipated bottlenecks appear. … Once growth becomes routine, it’s time to Extract” 

Extract  

In this phase, you know what to expect, time becomes more linear, and you can calculate how things should be done seamlessly. 

“Now the shape of the problem and solution spaces are clear. One euro in equals three euros out. Playbooks emerge. … Economies of scale matter. …” 

– Kent Beck, The Product Development Triathlon 

Overall, according to Kent Beck implementation patterns, in the Explore phase, the concept is that time appears more linear and flexible as you experiment with new ideas to determine what works and what doesn’t. It’s like digging multiple holes until you find treasure. In the Expansion phase, you know where to focus and are in the growth stage, but time becomes compressed, and you face unexpected hurdles and challenges. In the Extract phase, time returns to a more linear flow, and you know what to expect, allowing you to plan accordingly. 

Applying the 3X Methodology 

As an idea progresses, it can change depending on where it is on its journey from the Explore stage into the Expand stage and finally into the Extract stage.  This includes how it’s financed, tested, planned, implemented and evolved.  It even covers managing risk, which as we discussed above, is one of the priorities of a business leader. 

Learn More 

Watch Kent Beck share his thoughts on “3X: Explore, Expand, Extract” for yourself: 

If you’d like to see an example of how one Cincom Smalltalk customer used the 3X Methodology to build out a business plan and create a smarter solution, listen as Suzanne Fortman discusses it on this video: