Prototyping: Returning to the Design Model

Returning to the Design Model

I would like to return to the design model and offer up a set of tools I call design schematics, worksheets of a sort that help guide the project along. Here are the six steps I like to use in my design projects.

1. collaborative design & direction setting
2. discovery, research, & assessment
3. divergent thinking & ideation
4. convergent thinking, filtering, & selecting
5. prototyping & piloting
6. implementation, tracking, & adjusting course

I recommend prototyping be embedded in a larger design framework with the entire process is driven by a vision for the future, continuous creativity, and regularly checked alignment with the environment, users, and the organization's capacities and internal dynamics.

This is not always possible or desired in every instance and the prototyping process can succeed independently, especially in skilled hands. I have created a template to accompany and guide the design process based on a series of questions at each stage. I call these the design schematics. Here is a link to the design schematics template. I’ll explain these in more detail.

Using the design schematics. The schematics are composed of six worksheets, one for each stage of the design process, as well as an introductory problem definition worksheet to get the process started. I will explain how to use each one.

Defining your current problem: During the design phase, it is most important to spend time identifying the problem, understanding who would benefit from a solution, and scoping out the project. The worksheet includes an initial problem definition along with some background information like why the problem may lend itself to a design approach, what attempts to solve the problem were made in the past, and some of the individual roles in the problem/solution. I like the give the project a code name, just for fun.

Design worksheet: The design worksheet focuses on developing a full design brief. I like to use a design brief to summarize and communicate the work here and eventually establish criteria for success. The brief is a useful guiding document that helps plan the project, establish timeframes for meetings and events, and generate an initial cost proposal. This worksheet includes the first formulation of the problem statement, lists criteria for success, explore the value proposition, and sets the research and discovery process in motion. I end the worksheet with a table of contents for the design brief – every project is different!

Discovery worksheet: The discovery process is one of background research, environmental scanning, any SWOT (or similar) analysis, historical research, potential futuring activities, and can be quite expansive. The worksheet is not designed to be all inclusive but to summarize efforts. It is important to identify the forces at play in the current environment and at some point in the (not too) distant future and articulate the implications for your organization, the larger context, and the various stakeholders.

Divergence worksheet: Divergence is about creating choices and the worksheet has five components: clear problem statement, lists of participants in the process, the selected ideation techniques, creating positive turbulence, and determining how many choices need to result from divergence. The worksheet should be supplemented with more complete process plans for each session.

Convergence worksheet: Convergence process is making choices and the worksheet has four components: how to make early choices and reviewing the initial criteria to check if they make sense, developing critical assumptions to help refine further choices, ensuring there are ways to learn what “wows” clients and stakeholders, and ways to filter and rank final choices to move them forward to prototyping and implementation.

Prototyping worksheet: The prototyping worksheet can help frame and focus the prototyping process. It encourages full description of the prototypes, plans to build and visualize them, and stories that can be told to help bring them to life. The worksheet asks that elements or functions of the prototype be identified for testing and that the test procedures and feedback mechanisms be selected. I also find it helpful to consider key hurdles that the prototype must pass before implementation can begin. By the end of the prototyping stage, a single clear strategy for addressing the problem should emerge and have enough detail developed that implementation can proceed.

Implementation worksheet: For many design problems, implementation deserves an entire plan on it’s own. The implementation worksheet helps to get this organized and launched. Decisions are required about the timeline, budget, impacts, and feedback mechanisms. It is useful to spend time discussing and determining what success should look like relative to the problem at hand and go so far as to list specific outcomes with metrics. Detailed cost projections or as much as a financial strategy should also emerge. I like to establish multiple targets for actions and link them to accountable managers or groups. I have found that implementation can sometimes require multiple worksheets if there are multiple strategies in play. Use this and all of the worksheets in flexible ways to fit to your design problem.

In conclusion. While I have mostly likely given an incomplete treatment of prototyping, I do believe there is enough detail here to help encourage and organize a good prototyping effort. Prototyping is a special kind of convergence process that serves to make ideas real, test them in simulation or real-world situations, and prepare them for implementation. Over the past few pages I attempted to define prototyping and share considerations for practice based on my experiences.

I hope the design schematics tool is a helpful way to organize your prototyping journey and encourages you to explore this powerful technique for bringing ideas to life. My guess is that we’re in a renaissance of prototyping methodologies, as design think surges I believe that we will see the method pushed further, new kinds of approaches emerge, and new technologies arise that give us capabilities that we have never had before.

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Robert Brodnick, Ph.D. Founder, Brodnick Consulting Group robert@brodnick.consulting 530.798.4082