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

Michael Schrage (Author)
4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
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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

From Booklist

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
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First Sentence
We shape our models, and then our models shape us. Read the first page
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Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Index | Back Cover
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Customer Reviews

17 Reviews
5 star:
 (12)
4 star:
 (2)
3 star:
 (1)
2 star:
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4.4 out of 5 stars (17 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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5.0 out of 5 stars Three years on, still a great book, Sep 16 2002
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This review is from: Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate (Hardcover)
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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2.0 out of 5 stars Preaching to the choir, Aug 21 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate (Hardcover)
This is a good book for someone to read if they are skeptical of the benefits of prototypes. However, since I already know the value of interactive prototypes I became quickly tired with the book.

Other critiques: it felt like the author had a bunch of cool little examples lying around and finally got the idea to put it together, surrounded by some fluffy text to make it thick enough to sell as a book, and put it on the market. Lots of space is taken up by these excerpts, as well as big text in the margins summing up "important points," which I would usually find useful but instead gave the impression of just taking up space.

Also, the author makes repeated use of similes to the point that it got annoying; "Just like a is to b, c is to d."

At one point, the author brings up the difference between a "simulation" and a "prototype," and just when you think the core of the matter is going to be distinguished the author backs out, leaving you wondering why they brought it up in the first place if they weren't going to take a stab at defining and differentiating them.

Sorry, but given the hype I was sorely disappointed. Read the first chapter or so in a bookstore before actually buying this.

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4.0 out of 5 stars Enlightening, July 11 2002
By A Customer
This review is from: Serious Play: How the World's Best Companies Simulate to Innovate (Hardcover)
This book gave me a very good and new insight of how to manage prototyping. It is enlightening for not only it explains and lists the topics that are important. It also gives us lots of practical examples of implementations.
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