This reminds me of something that Galula mentioned his his Counterinsurgency Warfare. Paraphrasing pages 104-106 of his most recent book, he says the Chinese government would enact programs by first sectoring off areas and implimenting different variations of the program, and then experimentally evaluating the results. Later, the more successful variations would be implimented on a wider and larger scale.

There's nothing new under the sun.