Eh, I think it depends on how canny the executive running the experiment is and how much experience they have in the particular part of the industry. I worked i

Eh, I think it depends on how canny the executive running the experiment is and how much experience they have in the particular part of the industry. I worked in restaurants when I was younger and now have done a lot of sales-side and logistics management, and it wouldn't take more than a day of working in a new restaurant for me to accurately understand some of the major issues going on. You just have to be open-minded, identify the best employees, and let them freely bitch at you for about two hours while trying to do the work with them. That'll give you a good sense of the big blockers at that particular restaurant. Same is true for any software org. The difference will be if you think that you're going to come up with better prescriptions for success than they are (and this is where the level of executive cleverness comes into play). One day per month in a Starbucks shop and then giving technical directives wouldn't make any sense, but one day per month in a Starbucks shop and then redirecting budgeting at a corporate level might.