Experimentation has proven itself in science and technology, yielding dramatic advances. Can we apply the same experiment methods to the military transformation process? Can the same experiment methods achieve similar advances in military effectiveness? The thesis of this book is that robust experimentation methods from the sciences can be adapted and applied to military experimentation and will provide the foundation for continual advancement in military effectiveness. Warfighting experiments are experiments conducted to support the development of operational military concepts and capabilities. Military concepts focus on ways to conduct military operations while capabilities focus on the means to execute the concepts. Warfighting experiments belong to applied rather than pure research; they are often executed in field or operational settings rather than in the laboratory. These experiments include human participants, usually military personnel, rather than animal, plant, or physical elements in the experiment. This book has three purposes. The first is to show that there is an inherent logic and coherence to experimentation when experimentation is understood as the pursuit of cause and effect. The second purpose is to illustrate that this logic is easy to understand and extremely useful when designing experiments to support the capability development process. The third purpose is to present a framework derived from this logic to organize "best practices" and provide a rationale for considering tradeoffs among these techniques in the design of experiments.

Introduction -- What is an experiment? -- Experiment logic -- Experiment requirement 1: ability to use the new capability -- Experiment requirement 2: ability to detect change -- Experiment requirement 3: ability to isolate the reason for change -- Experiment requirement 4: ability to relate results to actual operations -- Improving individual experiments -- Designing experiments with multiple trials -- Improving experiment campaigns -- Appendix A: summary of good experiment techniques -- Appendix B: experiment, test, demonstrate, and train.