Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate [Anglais] [Relié]

Recall the old saying about all work and no play making Jack a dull boy? 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 behavior that play--be it modeling, 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. --Dan Ring

In the late 1970s, a young Harvard Business School student figured there had to be a better way to crunch mergers-and-acquisitions numbers than manually recalculating them on printed ledger sheets. The grad student was Dan Bricklin, and his quest for a better way led to the creation of VisiCalc, the first electronic spreadsheet. Within five years, all Harvard MBA students used spreadsheet software.

Within a decade, low-cost spreadsheets had launched what Michael Schrage, author and codirector of the MIT Media Lab's eMarkets Initiative, calls "the largest and most significant experiment in rapid prototyping and simulation in the history of business." According to Schrage, it also helped kick off the personal-computer era, spawned the mergers-and-acquisitions boom of the late 1980s and made Michael Milken and legions of Wall Street analysts and traders rich.

Spreadsheets are one example of the simulations, prototypes and models that fill Schrage's newest work, Serious Play. Because spreadsheet software is so well known, Schrage devotes an entire chapter to it to illustrate his core idea: that a company dominates its industry when it designs prototypes quickly and frequently, and when it uses its innovations to continually transform itself and its relationships with customers and suppliers. Microsoft, Boeing, Royal Dutch/Shell, Disney and Netscape all are masters of what Schrage calls "rapid prototyping."

If you crack open Serious Play thinking you'll get a breezy read, you'll be disappointed. Schrage's writing is intellectually dense, though not impenetrable. He defines play as "improvising with the unanticipated in ways that create new value." Companies play when they run simulations to test what changing the shape of a widget will do to the weight of an automobile, or when they model what lowering the price of software will do to sales.

Schrage argues that while prototypes and simulations are valuable in supporting an organization's existing behaviors, they're more valuable when they turn up surprises. After airline industry deregulation, for example, NASA investigated pilot fatigue. Instead of finding that well-rested pilots flew better, researchers were surprised by simulations that showed pilots who'd worked together several shifts in a row responded better under stressful flight conditions than fresh crews.

Prototypes aren't immune to failure. Companies can shoot themselves in the foot by creating elaborate prototypes then ignoring what they've learned. In a classic example from the late 1960s, Sun Oil built an incredibly sophisticated corporate financial model, but it was so complicated managers never used it. Even worse, companies that fail to question the underlying assumptions of their prototypes wind up with products no one will buy.

How does Schrage relate his theories to the Internet Economy? Unfortunately, he leaves it up to them to draw their own conclusions. However, it's not hard to see Schrage's culture of rapid prototyping happening all over the Web. The Web has become the world's biggest prototype laboratory, with companies slapping on features as quickly as possible to gauge consumer reaction, test revenue models and even figure out which business they should be in. [See Schrage's Jan. 31 column "(Serious) Playtime."]

It's also easy to see how the Web has led to what Schrage calls prototype "Christmas trees," products that designers keep adding features to because they can, not because customers want them.

Schrage closes with a few pointers that dot-com companies would be wise to follow, especially if they don't have cultures that support formal modeling or simulation. Before jumping into a project, understand who the beneficiaries of prototypes or models are: customers, the marketing department or the CEO? Don't be afraid to fail. Outline how prototypes will be integrated into commercial products. Above all, play. This is serious advice from a master on the subject.

Les processus d'innovation sont modifiés par l'essor des technologies et l'apparition de nouveaux outils.
Il devient plus facile et moins coûteux d'élaborer des prototypes. Dans les entreprises les plus créatives, les prototypes sont à l'origine d'interactions entre collaborateurs, clients et fournisseurs, indispensables à la création d'un produit adapté aux besoins du consommateur. Améliorer le processus d'innovation nécessite donc de changer les comportements à l'intérieur et à l'extérieur de l'entreprise.
Celle-ci doit apprendre à utiliser les simulations pour poser les bonnes questions. En restant ouverte aux réponses inattendues, voire contradictoires, elle développe son aptitude à gérer les risques et opportunités de créer de la valeur.
Il est indispensable d'évaluer tous les gains potentiels liés à l'innovation.
Les échecs sont souvent liés à l'absence de clairvoyance concernant le rôle du prototype.
Difficulté à gérer l'abondance de modèles, incapacité de les confronter à la réalité de l'entreprise et du marché, absence de formalisation des meilleures pratiques : le prototype peut aussi se transformer en jouet inutilement coûteux. Une évaluation des bénéfices générés par l'innovation sur les plans humains, techniques ou commerciaux est donc indispensable.

Une idée centrale structure le livre de Michael Shrage. Cela doit d'ailleurs retenir notre intérêt tant il se trouve de gens, des deux côtés de l'Atlantique, qui ont fait fortune avec une seule idée qu'ils ont suivie sans dévier parce qu'elle était heureuse. "Expérimentez, faites des prototypes, améliorez-les", telle est la fameuse idée.

On le sait, la nouvelle technologie abaisse, dans beaucoup de cas, la barrière capitalistique à l'entrée sur certains marchés. Une activité qui n'était accessible qu'avec de lourds investissements devient tout à coup ouverte avec une mise de départ réduite, ainsi que le montre par exemple le cas désormais classique d'Amazon face à Barne & Noble. Il en résulte des bizarreries concurrentielles parfois saisissantes.

La baisse des prix de revient des prototypes est un des aspects de cette baisse de l'intensité capitalistique. Là où les prototypes étaient onéreux et donc rares, ils deviennent bon marché et donc courants. La gestion des prototypes nombreux devient une méthode d'innovation. En théorie de l'évolution, on appelle cela la "saturation du prédateur".

De cela l'auteur déduit une méthode de management qui se résume à : "ready, fire, aim" que l'on traduira par : "prêt, tirez, visez". Toute la philosophie du prototype se concentre sur la propitiatoire inversion de "tirez" et "visez" par rapport au sens commun ou à l'intelligence stratégique telle qu'on la conçoit en France. On a longtemps pensé qu'il fallait beaucoup étudier et réfléchir avant de décider et fabriquer. Cette fausse évidence est remise en question. Le meilleure management possible d'une entreprise est celui du management de son processus de production... de prototypes.

La pensée de l'auteur se déroule sur ce mode de retournement et c'est sans doute en cela qu'elle illustre le mieux l'innovation qu'elle prône. Ainsi, ce ne sont pas les équipes innovantes qui créent les bons prototypes, ce sont les bons prototypes qui génèrent des équipes innovantes. La méthode des prototypes devient un méthode de management des hommes. Le prototype 0.7 a déjà produit des changements dans l'entreprise avant la commercialisation du modèle 1.0.

Microsoft qui a fait tester par 300 000 utilisateurs la bêta version de Windows aurait ainsi économisé un milliard de dollars. Faire produire la valeur par le client est souvent une bonne idée stratégique.

On pourra mettre en contrepoint de ce livre le classique de Bruno Latour Aramis ou l'amour des techniques (La Découverte, 1987). Ce livre traite de l'acceptation de l'innovation par son environnement, montrant bien que l'innovation est en fait un processus polémique. Le prototype constitue un fait technique qui amène les acteurs et les résultats à constituer des alliances qui pèsent sur la décision. L'originalité de Bruno Latour est de mettre sur le même plan les résultats des prototypes et les acteurs. Ceci revient à éclairer la scène de l'innovation d'un côté peu exploré, celui de la polémique.

De ce point de vue, le prototype cher à Michael Shrage constitue un accélérateur d'innovation obligeant les acteurs à se positionner et à décider. Ce ne sont plus les hommes qui prennent des décisions mais les décisions qui prennent les hommes. En ce sens, partant d'un objet particulier qui est le prototype, il nous livre un leçon plus générale sur le pilotage d'une organisation et sur l'élaboration d'une stratégie.

On regrettera - ultime scorie de l'esprit français - que l'auteur développe sur 213 pages ce qui, de notre point de vue, aurait pu être dit, expliqué et démontré en trente pages. On dit que la démocratie moderne se définit par l'axiome : "Un homme égale une voix". Héritiers d'une tradition qui aime mêler l'esprit de finesse à l'esprit de géométrie, nous regretterions que la littérature moderne sur le management se résume à : "Un livre égale une idée". -- Bruno Jarrosson et Ivan Gavriloff --

At such firms as Walt Disney, Microsoft, 3M, Sony, and Hewlitt-Packard, serious play is serious work. Schrage, a research associate at MIT Media Lab and columnist for Fortune, sets out to explore "serious play," which he defines as creative improvisation in corporations. Serious play is taking place worldwide, and it uses such "toys" as models, simulations, and prototypes. With the development of sophisticated technology, the distinction among these three toys has blurred, and they all are used as an effort to recreate some aspect of reality that matters; their real value is the insight they provide an organization. The irony of innovation in any field, especially the most competitive, is that you can't be a serious innovator unless you are willing to play--which means seriously investing in the challenge of confronting the uncertainties that future markets will bring by rigorously questioning and revising the rules. This is a "must read" book. Mary Whaley

Serious Play is about serious work: how the world's leading companies model, prototype, and simulate to innovate. Increasingly, prototypes are the key platforms and models are the core media for managing risk and creating value. They allow for cost-effective creativity, encourage profitable improvisation, and inspire organizations to collaborate in unexpected ways. Serious Play is a crisply written handbook for product, process and project leaders who are determined to manage their innovation initiatives successfully.

As digital technologies for modeling and simulation offer more value for less money, they provoke fundamental challenges to organizational culture and design. MIT research associate Michael Schrage asserts that conventional wisdom surrounding innovation gets turned inside out: What innovative companies choose not to model often proves more important than what they do. Contrary to the popular assumption that innovative teams generate innovative prototypes, in fact innovative prototypes generate innovative teams. How innovators play with their models and simulations invariably matters far more than what they actually plan. In fact, Schrage shows why innovative firms cannot seriously plan unless they seriously play.

Drawing upon a range of companies as diverse as Walt Disney, Boeing, Merrill Lynch, General Electric, IBM, IDEO, Microsoft, Royal Dutch Shell, DaimlerChrysler and American Airlines, Schrage identifies the common patterns and practices that distinguish productive prototyping cultures from pathological ones. He explores the intimate connection between how leading innovators model reality and how they actually manage it. He examines prototyping failures as rigorously as he explains prototyping successes.

The essential message of Serious Play is that tomorrow's innovations will increasingly be the byproduct of how companies and their customers behave-and misbehave-around this new generation of models, prototypes, and simulations. The distinction between serious play and serious work dissolves as technology gives innovators ever-increasing opportunities to simulate and prototype their ideas. As the media for modeling radically change, so will the organizations that use them.

With real-world examples and engaging anecdotes, Schrage argues that the future of prototyping is the future of innovation. A User's Guide included in the book helps readers quickly take away the innovation practices profiled throughout. A landmark book by one of the most perceptive voices in the field of innovation, Serious Play will lay serious claim to the hearts and minds of forward-looking business managers.

Discusses how the world's leading companies model, prototype, and simulate to innovate. Provides a handbook for product, process, and project leaders who are determined to manage their innovation initiatives successfully. DLC: Technological innovations--Management-Simulations methods.

Michael D. Schrage is a research associate at the MIT Media Lab, A Merrill Lynch Forum Innovation Fellow and a columnist for Fortune magazine.