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Michael Schrage, Tom Peters (Introduction) Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate Buy this title or join our Management Literature Club and have a chance to GET IT FREE! |
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Review by Dan Ring, Courtesy of Amazon.com Forget the old saying, all work and no play. World-class companies today need play--serious play--if they want to make truly innovative products, argues Michael Schrage, an MIT Media Lab fellow and Fortune magazine columnist. In Serious Play he writes, "When talented innovators innovate, you don't listen to the specs they quote. You look at the models they've created". Whether it's a spreadsheet that tests a new financial model or a foam prototype of a calculator, what interests Schrage is not the model itself, but the behaviour that play--be it modelling, prototyping, or simulation--inspires. Schrage examines the approaches to successful prototyping at companies such as AT&T, Boeing, Microsoft and DaimlerChrysler and describes the kind of culture that's needed for encouraging innovation. In the last chapter, he lays out the 10 rules of serious play, including: be willing to fail early and often; know when the costs outweigh the benefits; know who wins and who loses from an innovation; build a prototype that engages customers, vendors and colleagues; create markets around prototypes; and simulate the customer experience. Well written and inspiring, Serious Play, is a first-rate user's guide for managers, project leaders and other innovators. by Robert Morris There is more significance to the title than one may initially assume.
Some “play” can be taken much too seriously as when overzealous parents
scream at their children as they begin to compete in organized sports;
other “play” is not treated seriously enough as when a corporation discourages
(perhaps even punishes) innovative thinking unless it has an immediate
and favorable impact on the bottom line. Many executives, thus abused,
may then vent their frustrations by behaving boorishly at a
In the Foreword, Tom Peters quotes Schrage’s assertion that “Innovative prototypes generate innovative teams. Not vice versa.” Peters then observes that, in Serious Play, the “big idea” is that “the prototyping process becomes the scaffolding” for an enterprise’s approach to innovation. As Schrage explains, “I have always enjoyed rehearsals more than performances.” I suggest that you keep that statement clearly in mind as you proceed through the book. It reveals much about Schrage’s perspective on the correlations between prototypes and innovation. Here is how the book is organized: Part I: Getting Real, Part II: Model Behavior, and Part III: S(t)imulating Innovation. Schrage then provides a User’s Guide and Bibliography. Throughout the book, he shares a wealth of real-world experience which explains what innovation is, and, what it can help to accomplish, not only with the design of a new product or service but also with the formulation of new and better ways for people to work together. The key is simulation; moreover, “not just playing with representations of ideas” (lots of ideas, the more the better) but “playing with the various versions of representations of ideas.” Near the end of the final chapter, Schrage poses a number of critically important questions, suggesting that the “best hope for answering these questions, or coping with their implications, is to build or grow models and play with them seriously.” The world’s best companies simulate in order to innovate. For example: American Airlines, Boeing, DaimlerChrysler, General Electric, IBM, IDEO, Walt Disney, Merrill Lynch, Microsoft, and Royal Dutch Shell. Schrage believes that the creative tensions between innovators who design and innovators who evolve “will likely result in breakthroughs in products, services, and their yet-to-be-anticipated hybrids.” So, why not prototype how to prototype? Why not play simulation games that reveal new and better ways to simulate? Tom Peters describes Serious Play as “simply the best book on innovation I’ve ever read.” I agree. Perhaps you will, also. Order Serious Play here. Find the full list of Robert Morris's Business Nuggets featured by Eastbook.com here.
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