In Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate, author Michael Schrage asserts, "Serious play is not an oxymoron; it is the essence of innovation." The book's core theory is that true innovation depends on improvisation, a behavioral interaction with prototypes, rather than a merely philosophical debate of ideas.

In the book's foreword, Tom Peters introduces Serious Play as "a seminal contribution to the 100-year thread of modern management thought." And indeed, that's just the sort of splash author Michael Schrage seems eager to make. This is an intellectual and energetically charged book of innovative theory in which Schrage argues that the quality of innovation is improved when a prototype exists to be "played with," allowing for cost- effective improvements based on real-life interaction with a new product or technology.

The book itself is well written, though content organization is a bit scattered due to his wrestling with a hefty topic. Serious Play launches into a somewhat slow start, but the pace soon picks up with a discussion of mental models versus externalized, concrete representations of thought.

Prototyping Behaviors

The book is divided into three parts: "Getting Real," "Model Behavior," and "S(t)imulating Innovation." In "Getting Real," Schrage hypothesizes that the only actionable idea is one that is represented by prototype. Prototypes engage an organization's thinking and spark conversation. Through human interaction, collaborative creativity is realized. The value of prototyping is in the behavior that it sparks.

Serious Play is replete with real-world examples that illustrate the author's points. In one example of collaborative creativity, for instance, Schrage cites Boeing, whose 777 jet was the result of ideas shared and innovations made possible by CATIA, a super-sophisticated computer-aided-design program. The 777 was virtually built in CATIA prior to prototyping, which in turn allowed for the resolution of design conflicts at an earlier phase of development. The CATIA system became a communication device that led to engineering collaborations that may not otherwise have happened, taking Boeing from a "silo" design environment to a more efficient, highly innovative one.

Rapid Prototype Development

Schrage argues in favor of rapid prototype development, that is to say, developing more prototype generations over a shorter period of time. In fact, he goes so far as to state, "Any organization committed to a speed-to-market philosophy inherently commits itself to 'rapid prototyping' if it has any hopes for success." He supports this statement with compelling examples from leading global companies like Walt Disney, AT&T, and Federal Express.

In situations involving client approvals, the goal becomes presenting the client with a prototype for reaction quickly, without wasting time perfecting the model. Why? Schrage contends that most clients don't know what exactly they want without having the chance to experience a working prototype. With an early prototype, clients become more enrolled in development strategies. And a client who is involved in prototype development is less likely to reject presented ideas, which means the process will be streamlined, costs will be minimized, and team morale will ultimately be improved.

Throughout the book, Schrage offers insightful commentary on the necessity of rapid and frequent prototyping for better collaboration. Perhaps Schrage's most interesting idea is that innovative teams don't generate innovative prototypes; innovative prototypes generate innovative teams. "In world-class companies," Schrage asserts, "an interesting prototype emits the social and intellectual equivalent of a magnetic field, attracting smart people with interesting ideas about how to make it better."

The Spreadsheet Example

Schrage devotes a chapter to describing how spreadsheets revolutionized global finance in the 1980s, offering a faster, less expensive modeling tool. He positions the spreadsheet as a paradigm of the benefits and challenges posed by radical innovations in prototyping. Schrage makes the metaphor work, citing reasons for the spreadsheet's overwhelming success: immediate payback on investment, simplified projections, simultaneous opportunity creation and risk management, the fusion of analysis and operations, enhanced communication and collaboration, and the ability to use spreadsheets with other models.

He then describes the challenges of spreadsheets and, therefore, of other radical prototyping innovations: "analysis paralysis," faulty assumptions, and the organizational politics that go into the creation of spreadsheets. He boils these lessons down to two overarching themes he contends transcend to other prototyping innovations: 1) the model mirrors the interaction, and 2) the cost of using the modeling medium has proven less expensive than not using it.

Cultural Implications

One valuable asset to prototyping is the introspection it generates within an organization or marketplace. Studying the behaviors that result from prototyping can help raise bigger questions. Schrage offers that, aside from the marketplace itself, there is no better testing ground to gain behavioral insights and generate more productive work hours than prototypes.

Part II of Serious Play explores the culture of prototyping and the implications of evolving technologies. "Prototypes," Schrage asserts, "always reflect the corporate cultures that create them." Innovation requires that companies manage the tradeoffs between formal and informal culture. Schrage offers that successful companies will be willing to use models to challenge widely held company beliefs and address issues considered taboo within the organization.

One thing that keeps Schrage's writing style fresh and interesting is that he tends to avoid drawing conclusions from his examples: he leaves that up to the reader. In one particularly compelling example of the dangers inherent in holding taboos sacred, Schrage notes that in the 1980s, the US Navy would not permit the hypothetical sinking of its aircraft carriers, its biggest and most expensive weapons platform of the day. This example is particularly hard hitting in light of terrorist attacks on American aircraft carriers in the years since.

In terms of blunt honesty, Schrage never comes up short. Throughout Serious Play, the author unabashedly addresses the taboo areas of corporate politics that readers would be wise to consider but may be loathe to admit. In a section titled "Never Show Fools Unfinished Work," Schrage concludes that many of the biggest "fools" in prototyping development are often found in upper management. This becomes evident, he attests, in companies where the interval between initial prototype creation and presentation to upper management is significant enough to indicate upper management is being asked to approve new products, rather than actively participate in their development.

Virtual versus Palpable Prototyping

Serious Play advocates "relentless prototyping"—generating the most models in the least time—as opposed to trying for one perfect model. Instead of using the innovation process to drive prototype development, prototypes should drive the innovation process. In order to build better products and services, companies must learn to build better prototypes and simulations.

In one compelling example, Schrage cites the "lagging competitiveness" of Detroit automobile manufacturers in the 1980s, whose intricate, expensive clay models were counterproductive to rapid iterations, modifications, or interaction. The book quotes GVO's Michael Barry in support of this example: "When a [clay] model starts to harden up, so does a lot of the thinking."

In contrast, Schrage presents Toyota, whose speed-to-market was twice that of GM's due to highly iterative, computer-modeled prototyping. This is not to say Schrage fundamentally supports the use of virtual prototypes over palpable ones. In fact, he states, "prototyping is inherently a multimedia process." The key point he makes is that, virtual or palpable, prototypes should be iterative, therefore creating a more polished final product. Moreover, Schrage defines speed-to-market not only as an end for competitive advantage, but also as a creative means leading to greater collaboration and innovation.

The Element of Surprise

In a particularly interesting chapter, Schrage discusses the usefulness of prototypes in generating surprise findings, citing a simulation test study conducted by NASA in the 1980s to investigate the role of pilot fatigue in aircraft accidents. The NASA researchers found more than what they were looking for—they discovered that fatigue was far less of a factor than whether or not the pilot team had flown together. Further research indicated that three of the worst accidents of the era involved pilot teams flying together for the first time. This simulation experiment led to a potentially life-saving, and completely unexpected, discovery. Schrage argues that frequent prototyping often leads to such results.

In an interesting corollary to this discussion, Schrage points out that such "surprises," brought about by models and simulations, may indicate communications breakdowns within the organization. For instance, the researchers at NASA may have been surprised to learn that multiple flight partners posed a threat to air safety, but, as Schrage indicates, perhaps the pilots could have told them. It's an apt example, and Schrage uses it to make his point clearly and with impact.

Prototyping Perils

Michael Schrage skillfully presents the issue of modeling from all sides. He warns that there are pitfalls inherent in some enterprise-management models, citing Sun Oil's failed financial model of 1969. Sun Oil made an investment in a digital simulation with as many variables and an outrageous number of equations required to run it. Schrage cites a "disconnect between this sophisticated simulation and the everyday realities of managerial life" as cause for its failure. The model itself was so large and complex that no one used it, and it was defunct in just a couple of years. Later he notes that, had Sun Oil mandated the use of its financial model, or taken other steps to ensure its adoption, the outcome might have been quite different.

Schrage effectively examines several additional pitfalls to prototyping. In a section on "Feature Creep," Schrage successfully argues the dangers of allowing a good prototype to become the springboard for an overload of features, citing Microsoft's reputation for product development based on feature evolution. The end result is a plethora of features that far exceeds user need, and therefore promises lower returns on the investment of development. In another section he argues against predictive quantitative modeling, asserting, "The safest prediction about the future is that it will be impossible to predict."

Successful Simulation

In Part III, "S(t)imulating Innovation," Schrage discusses the creative interaction critical to the success of all models. How we "play" with models is as essential to the learning process as the models themselves. So whether we use simulation exercises as a platform for practicing "real-world" scenarios, or whether we use them instead to expand the capacity of our imaginings, Schrage theorizes it is the interaction itself that holds value. As important as how we interact with models is how we measure them. Beyond rapid prototyping is the ability to test design iterations and measure performance. Schrage contends that speed-to-market isn't as much a determinant of success in rapid innovation as is the customer's own mean-time-to-payback.

By Schrage's argument, the focus should be on the customer's needs, not on the speed of the innovator. "Clearly," argues Schrage, "one's customers—not one's prototyping process—should determine the appropriate rate of innovation. What use is a speedy rate of clever innovation that outstrips the customer's desire or ability to assimilate it?" This is quite an insightful argument from an author whose central case has been rapid prototyping—yet another example of how Schrage is able to take an issue and examine it from all sides.

The book closes with a "User's Guide," a prescriptive chapter designed to help readers put their own modeling plan into action. It falls a bit short of its goal, however, perhaps because the topic at hand is too immense and holds far too many variables for a step-by- step instructional guide. Schrage's writing is best when he takes the broad view, as he does throughout most of the book.

Read with an open mind, Serious Play has the potential to help readers expand their thinking and utilize simulation and prototyping in exciting new ways. And, for companies such as Makino, it gives verification to speed-to-market activities being in the best interest of both the manufacturer and the customer.

Copyright © 2001 - 2010 by Makino, Inc. All rights reserved.