Successful innovation demands more than a good strategic plan; it requires creative improvisation. Much of the "serious play" that leads to breakthrough innovations is increasingly linked to experiments with models, prototypes, and simulations. As digital technology makes prototyping more cost-effective, serious play will soon lie at the heart of all innovation strategies, influencing how businesses define themselves and their markets. Author Michael Schrage is one of today's most widely recognized experts on the relationship between technology and work. In Serious Play, Schrage argues that the real value in building models comes less from the help they offer with troubleshooting and problem solving than from the insights they reveal about the organization itself. Technological models can actually change us--improving the way we communicate, collaborate, learn, and innovate. With real-world examples and engaging anecdotes, Schrage shows how companies such as Disney, Microsoft, Boeing, IDEO, and DaimlerChrysler use serious play with modeling technologies to facilitate the collaborative interactions that lead to innovation. A user's guide included with the book helps readers apply many of the innovation practices profiled throughout. A landmark book by one of the most perceptive voices in the field of innovation.

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 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 which 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.

36 of 38 found the following review helpful:


This book changed how I think about simulation  Nov 18, 1999 By Michael P. Bean "Hippolyte"
This is one of the best books on simulation that I've read. Through many intriguing examples, Serious Play shows how simulation can accelerate and improve decision-making. The book explains how simulation can be a critical tool for strategic planning. Schrage frames simulation as an inclusive, primary business activity, instead of something exclusive, performed by experts in a back office.

I especially liked Schrage's recognition of spreadsheets as a simulation tool. In discussions on simulation, spreadsheets are usually ignored because they are seen as unsophisticated. Schrage shows how spreadsheet simulations made many of the financial innovations of the 80s and early 90s possible.

In addition to convincing readers that simulations are valuable, Schrage does a good job of introducing readers to how simulations can be implemented in business. The chapters near the end of the book on measuring the ROI of simulations and his brief user's guide provide some useful tools for those interested in using simulations and prototypes to improve decision-making.

23 of 23 found the following review helpful:


The Big Picture  Dec 02, 1999 By Greg Clay (gregory.r.clay@ac.com)
Schrage makes strong arguments for the value of simulating/modeling/prototyping. By treating these terms as synonyms, he is able to avoid being dragged down in the minutae of modeling techniques and approaches.

This book will help engineers, designers and simulationists communicate the value of prototypes. Executives will understand some of the potential pitfalls of managing prototype-driven products. Pariticularly interesting are his points on how modeling affects behavior in an organization and how an organization must be prepared to handle innovative prototypes.

Simulationists looking for discussions including terms like "discrete-event," "systems dynamics," and "probability distribution" will want to look elsewhere. Schrage's examples, mostly from the world of spreadsheet financial models, physical product prototyping, and software development, deal with the organizational implications of innovative prototypes, not "how to" develop prototypes.

32 of 34 found the following review helpful:


Simulation Enlarges Shared Space, Thinking, and Results!  Sep 17, 2000 By Donald Mitchell "Jesus Loves You!"
:'Serious play is not an oxymoron; it is the essence of innovation.'

Serious Play is one of those rare books that will change the paradigms that many companies and other organizations have, enable them to learn faster and more effectively, and then make better decisions.

In the foreword, Tom Peters connects the concepts in this book to one that Bob Waterman and he wrote about in In Search of Excellence: Ready, Fire, Aim! The idea is that we can learn a lot by trying things out before they are finalized. In the process, our aim improves. This is an elegant description of some of the advantages of simulation.

The book is rich in examples of how companies use simulation. These examples are clustered around financial models (both spreadsheets and more advanced computer models) for transaction decisions, creating three-dimensional models of new products for development and testing (Boeing's 777 and DaimlerChrysler's new cars), improving choices around environmental changes (Royal Dutch/Shell's planning process), and examining business model alternatives (demand and scheduling simulations for airlines and hotels, and combining better cost information from activity-based costing to identify strategic alternatives). Each of these clusters is examined in some detail, with lots of lessons of what works and what does not.

Here are the book's organizational structure and key ideas:

Part I: Getting Real

1. The New Economics of Innovation (it's usually cheaper to spend time and money on simulations than to make mistakes in the marketplace)

2. A Spreadsheet Way of Knowledge (spreadsheets allow companies to look at more alternatives and explain them better, but there are dangers in relying on faulty ones)

Part II: Model Behavior

3. Our Models, Ourselves (models reflect how we think about innovation and our assumptions more than the real world)

4. Productive Waste (the more we waste in thinking through alternatives, the better the final result and eventual economic returns are as long as we are focused on speed to implementation)

5. Preparing for Surprise (the most valuable benefits come from surprises we don't expect -- be sure to keep your eyes open and follow up)

6. Perils of Pathological Prototyping (ways to make simulations worthless or harmful -- lessons of what to avoid doing)

Part III: S(t)imulating Innovation

7. S(t)imulating Interventions (creating shared space and information flows allows more types of stakeholders to participate including suppliers, other internal functions, and customers)

8. Measuring Prototyping Paybacks (understanding how you generate the most value from your project can improve your process)

9. Going Meta: Evolution as a Business Practice (future steps for simulation improvements)

User's Guide (10 key lessons):

(1) Ask who benefits? This may create bias. Eliminate or reduce the bias.

(2) Decide what the main paybacks should be and measure them. Rigorously. Without this focus, your process can miss the most important elements of the activity for you.

(3) Fail early and often. Iterations are more important than making the most progress with each prototype.

(4) Manage a diversified prototype portfolio. Each way you prototype will have biases and errors in it. By duplication of prototypes in different forms, you can avoid those mistakes.

(5) Commit to a migration path. Honor that commitment. This means that you integrate simulations into a business process.

(6) Prototypes should encourage play. Otherwise, finished models simply cast ideas in concrete (clay models of cars often had this effect)

(7) Create markets around the prototype. This means getting customers involved through methods such as beta testing.

(8) Encourage role playing. This is an effective way to create empathy and a shared view of the problem.

(9) Determining the points of diminishing return. This means to spend your time and efforts in those areas that are most productive, and to manage your total time to implementation against the cost of errors you can eliminate.

(10) Record and review relentlessly and rigorously. This is the idea of how to improve your overall simulation process.

What, then, are the limitations of this book? As someone who has worked with simulations and studied them for over 25 years, I believe the author missed some important points:

A- Simulations are even more valuable for choosing what technologies to pursue than they are for any of the applications described here. By combining factors like the expected rate of cost decline, effectiveness enhancement, inherent demand for the technology, price elasticities, and functionality, one can estimate likely paths for one technology to dominate others. Then you can plan your development path to take advantage of those paths.

B- All public companies can benefit from simulations involving polling of current and potential shareholders, but most limit themselves to financial models and spreadsheets which produce misleading results.

C- A major advantage of simulations for looking at external scenarios outside your control is that those using the scenarios begin to think of strategies that will outperform under all these circumstances (Arie de Geus taught me this from his experience at Royal Dutch/Shell, but it was not reported in this book).

D- Simulations are also very useful for generating new technology concepts. I often use these in my consulting practice to help R & D organizations to locate new technologies that are worth developing.

E- Simulations work best because the play has no immediate 'real world' consequences. In several places, the author seems to suggest that people be evaluated for how well they perform in simulations (the military does this). Those real world consequences will harm the value of the simulation for creativity purposes. See Creativity in Context. As a result, I find the title a little off target. I think a better one would have been Seriously Improving Results from Playful Play.

F- Simulations do not have to be numbers, model, or prototype based. Some of the most useful ones I have seen are based on having people create their own stories and story boards. Although story boards are described here as a method, they are not explored nearly enough.

G- The author isn't careful enough about his use of terms. As a result (although he warns us to be careful), it isn't always clear what he means by a 'model' or a 'prototype.' I was surprised by this weakness in an otherwise well-done book.

H- Simulations using analogies are among the most powerful. I did not see any of these described here. You can read the Synectics literature to get ideas for how to do this.

Despite these limitations, I strongly urge you to read and apply this book. Simulation is a major step forward in improving innovation and communications. Those who fail to master simulation methods are doomed to be overcome by them.

After you have finished reading the book, think about the 5 areas where an improved result would be most valuable to your company. Then think about how you could use simulations to help you create those improvements. Be sure to set high goals (like 2,000 percent solutions)! Then get started today! You'll be amazed at what you can learn!

20 of 22 found the following review helpful:


Serious Play is Serious Fun  Mar 20, 2000 By Bernard Dekoven "Major Fun"
Prototypes, simulations, beta versions, these, according to author Michael Schrage, are the stuff of Serious Play.

Serious Play is a book that I found myself taking very seriously in deed. Its well-researched, highly readable pages gave me a framework for understanding so much of my own experiences, both in the development of games and the development of technography, that I found myself having genuinely serious fun reading and rereading this remarkably intelligent little book.

The subtitle, "how the world's best companies simulate to innovate," explains a great deal of the power of Schrage's vision. His is a deep, and firmly rooted understanding of the emergence of a key practice for doing business in the new economy. He draws his insights from Microsoft and Disney, Boeing and Shell, top design firms and winners of the America's Cup.

Designing games, I learned over and over again the value of a good prototype. No matter how clear my vision or how carefully sketched and documented the game might be, the only way I could successfully communicate the concept was by giving people something they could actually play with. At Ideal Toys, the toy and game designers worked next to the model making group. At Mattel Multimedia we had a whole division of people who spent their days creating storyboards or prototyping our ideas in Director. The more detailed and functional the prototype, the more successfully I was able to engage my programmers, my designers, my marketers, my bosses, my salespeople, and my audiences in the design and development of a truly innovative game.

"Prototypes," explains Schrage, "should turn customers, clients, colleagues and vendors into collaborators...That's why such invitations should emphasize play...errors can be captured before they become obstacles, serendipity becomes a colleague. The more flexible and dynamic the prototype, the more flexible and dynamic the play -- and the greater the opportunities for profitable innovation."

The efficacy of the outliner as a tool for supporting collaborative work can be explained by thinking of the dynamic outline itself as a prototyping tool. Every technography-enabled consultation has at its heart the goal of helping people play with their ideas.

Schrage quotes British management professor David Lane: "Rather than attempting to take the position 'I am an expert in techniques that will teach you about your business,' the consultant should offer a process in which the ideas of the team are brought out and examined in a clear and logical way."

Technography works because it gives people the chance to see their words on screen, and then to play with their ideas, to organize and reorganize, iterate and reiterate, until they are able to synthesize individual views into a coherent, well-structured vision.

When I first met Michael Schrage and demonstrated technography to him, he was so moved by the power of what he experienced that he wound up writing Shared Minds. Today, reading Serious Play, I find my own ideas "brought out and examined in a clear and logical way," and myself moved to a new and clearer perspective on my work. As Tom Peters says of Serious Play, it is "simply the best book on innovation I've ever read."

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