Improving your supply chain over time is one of the most complicated things you can do. The reason is it involves the careful coordination of people, process, and technology.

Target can teach us a few lessons here.

Have a small, separate area within a facility or a small facility on its own to test your supply chain improvements. In Q2 2017, Target did just that as it continued its journey. There are a few things to remember that Target learned:

1. The test facility must not be needed to hit volume targets. As soon as volume gets too high, the testing capabilities would be lost to meet consumer demand. Unacceptable from an innovation point of view.

2. You not only need a test distribution facility, you need test stores if you are going to experiment with omnichannel capabilities. Target often tests in one of its Minneapolis stores because it's close to home. This second piece is critical because you do not want to have to train your entire store network on changes if they are not yet ready to rollout to everyone.

Just like in running, sometimes slow, carefully tested innovation is fast innovation.