With a clear understanding of how your solution addresses the selected challenge, it is important to clearly refine the scope of the trial. Your trial plan should include objectives and success factors that clearly define what you aim to achieve and learn during the trial in relation to the challenge and the project partner objectives. To unpack these, this section covers trial objectives, success factors and what you aim to learn, and expected impacts of the solution
Questions and prompts
Within your trial plan, it will be useful to detail the following:
Trial objectives: What are your trial objectives?
Set specific, measurable, and achievable trial objectives.
Align these objectives with the programme challenges.
Determine the key questions to address the programme challenge, considering any background research and context-specific factors.
What you want to learn: What do you want to learn from the trial?
Following on from the trial objectives, list the specific (research) questions that need to be answered within the trial
Be as specific as possible, and consider how you might address the needs of specific users, or a specific aspect of the product or service
Success factors: What does success look like on the trial?
Identify the critical factors to observe for successful integration of your solution.
Establish clear success criteria that demonstrate how the technology addresses the identified challenge.
Expected impacts: What are the expected impacts of your solution?
Specify the impacts resulting from the trial, and how they relate to trial objectives.
Explain how the observed benefits from the trial will bolster the business case for adopting the solution.
Consider wider impacts for project partners - this could include financial savings, time savings, efficiency improvements, environmental and social benefits, safety improvements and any other value add to project partners.
To support you in answering the above question(s), please find a link to the 'objectives and questions' template and the 'success factors and impacts' template below that can be downloaded in both PPT and JPEG and used within your trial plan.
The following external resources may be useful in defining your objectives and impact:
Design Kit's Theory of change, supporting organisations in articulating and interrogating assumptions about how your solution will create positive change.
GOV.UK's blogpost on Consequence Scanning, unpacking how to mitigate risks and prevent unintended consequences in your service and solution.
Community Tool Box's Developing a Logic Model, providing a framework for developing a logic model tp understand expected impacts of your solution.
