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Title: Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate by Michael Schrage ISBN: 0-87584-814-1 Publisher: Harvard Business School Press Pub. Date: 01 December, 1999 Format: Hardcover Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $27.50 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.41 (17 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Who Moved Our Prototype?
Comment: 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 Little League game.
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.
Rating: 3
Summary: Questions, questions (and not so many answers)
Comment: I'm not sure of Michael Schrage's actual background in this field, but from the book, I got the impression that he's more of an academic/writer than someone actually deeply immersered in this process of "serious play" (prototyping or modeling).
He certainly provides some useful tips and advice about the modeling or prototying process yet, for me, I found the book coming up short.
One device the writer uses is to consistently ask the reader questions about the modeling/prototyping process, i.e."Is it better for a company to do more [modeling] iterations to perfect the product, or to use less and send the product quickly to market with less iterations, but beating the competition?" While this is an effective device in getting the reader to realize that these are very real questions any company will face in using extensive prototyping, unfortunately, Mr. Schrage doesn't really provide much guidance or assistance in how companies have arrived at conclusions regarding these issues.
I'd like to ask Mr. Schrage, "How have these companies resolved these issues?, What kind of metrics do they use to decide those types of questions relating to decisions surrounding the prototyping process?" Maddeningly, these issues are never substantively dealt with.
As Mr. Schrage informs the reader on page 201 (near the end of the book, but the start of a brief 13 page "User's Guide") ... "A time-pressed innovator hungry to benefit from serious play might prefer a book entitled 'The Seven Habits of Highly Effective Innovators' or 'The One-Minute Modeler'. This is not that book."
I agree with that statement.
Rating: 5
Summary: Three years on, still a great book
Comment: Here's the best review I can give Michael Schrage's "Serious Play": Three years on, it's consistently the first book I pull out of my bookshelf when I'm looking for ideas for presentations, thoughts on introducing new products or services, etc. His commentary on "mean-time-to-payback" is something that will stick with you for years. It's brilliant stuff, written in clear, concise terms. And, surprisingly, very little of it is dated. Unlike many books from that era, there's no .com or Enron fixation for the author to be embarrassed about. Schrage's examples are pulled from health care technology, animation, theater...in short, an eye-opening spectrum of ideas. I consider "Serious Play" one of my best purchases ever.
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