Deep soil mixing (DSM) is an established ground improvement technique employed in civil projects. Despite the superiority of field tests for understanding this technique, their high cost has directed researchers' focus on laboratory tests, resulting in limited attention given to operational factors. Consequently, in current research, a small-scale DSM setup was developed to investigate the influence of operational factors such as mixing time and execution procedure on strength and deformation characteristics of laboratory-scale DSM columns. For the installation of DSM columns, mixing times of 130, 190 and 250 seconds were used, together with normal and zigzag execution procedures, cement dosages (alpha) of 300, 400 and 500 kg/m(3), and total water-to-cement (W-total/C) ratios of 2.5, 3.0 and 3.5. Laboratory samples were also prepared using the same alpha values and (W-total/C) ratios for comparison with DSM columns. The sand bed was prepared with 5 % and 30 % moisture contents. Experimental observations showed that saturating the sand bed enhances the mixing quality by preventing slurry water infiltration into the soil surrounding the DSM columns. Results indicated that increasing mixing time and adopting zigzag execution procedure improved mixing quality, unconfined compressive strength (UCS), secant modulus (E-50), and strain at maximum stress (epsilon(Maximum Stress)), whilst reducing strength variability. Moreover, the outcomes showed that UCS and E-50 of samples have a direct and inverse relationship with alpha and (W-total/C), respectively, and that the nature of these relationships, not their magnitude, were not affected by mixing time and execution procedure. Additionally, findings indicated that the failure mode of DSM samples was influenced by operational factors, whereas (E-50/UCS) ratio was not.