Prototyping by Michael Schrage
Serious Play by Michael Schrage. Make a standard process a thousand times faster, and it becomes something else.
When we radically transform the cost and quality of the raw materials of innovation, we become something else. We start to think twice. We re-perceive. Intuitions recalibrate. Choices shift. We define risk and crate value differently. Organizational relationships change.
Mental models become tangible and actionable only in the prototypes that management champions. Prototypes engage the organization’s thinking in the explicit. They externalize thought and spark conversation. They’re “bandwidth-boosters” and context-creators for both information management and human interaction.
Prototypes can be more articulate than people: “It is really impossible for clients, even those working with software engineers, to specify completely, precisely, and correctly the exact requirements of a modern software product before having built and tried some versions of the software they are specifying." In other words,, creating a dialogue between people and prototypes is more important than creating a dialogue between people alone.
“The trust is the clients do not know what they want. They usually do not know what questions must be answered, and they almost never have thought of the problem in the detail that must be specified. So, in planning any software activity, it is necessary to allow for extensive iteration between the client and the designer as part of the system definition.
The value of prototypes resides less in the models themselves than in the interactions—the conversations, arguments, consultations, collaborations-they invite. Prototypes force individuals and institutions to confront the tyranny of tradeoffs.
New modeling media also mean new relationships. Prototypes will become vital links in an organization’s “value chain”. “Model share” will be recognized as a necessary precursor to mind share and market share.
The architect’s sketchpad is an example of the variety of virtual worlds on which all professions depend.
What organizations choose not to model is as revealing as what they do.
The opportunities to model the future world swiftly, cheaply, and creatively will equip organizations to bridge the gaps between innovative ideas and innovative behavior.
Fifty years of technological revolution certainly don’t trump 3 million years of biological evolution, but technologies do increasingly mediate human experience.