A User’s Guide To The Rules Of Prototyping
Have finally got to the end of Michael Schrage’s Serious Play which is well worth a read for those interested in how the use of prototyping and simulation can be used to drive innovation.
He wraps the book with a short ‘users guide’ to prototyping which I’ve summarised the rules from below:
1. Ask, who benefits? What is this model for?
2. Decide what the main paybacks should be and measure them. Rigorously. Is the purpose of the prototype to save time? Save money? Demonstrate feasibility? Successful prototyping cultures link changes in their models to metrics they consider critical.
3. Fail early and often.
4. Manage a diversified prototype portfolio.
5. Commit to a migration path. Honor that commitment. Prototypes will not command time and respect unless they are seen to have a direct impact on the final product or service.
6. A prototype should be an invitation to play. Prototypes should lure people into innovative games of “What-if?” Prototypes should turn customers, clients, colleagues, and vendors into collaborators.
7. Create markets around the prototypes. Any organisation not using its prototypes and simulations to help create subsidies - measurable in time, money or human capital - from its key constituencies is mismanaging its prototyping potential. The classic examples cited here are Microsoft’s beta programmes; and Boeing’s use of a ‘weight economy’ rather than a ‘weight budget’ to manage development of its 777 jet.
8. Encourage role playing.
9. Determine the points of diminishing returns. What makes the 30th iteration of a prototype more valuable than than the 25th?
10. Record and review relentlessly and rigorously.
