Prototypes as (Design) Tools for Behavioral and Organizational Change

Abstract

This article promotes the idea that prototyping, a method regularly employed in the design and development of products and services, is a powerful means to facilitate organizational development and change. The authors present three objectives related to prototyping that facilitate behavioral change within organizations. These objectives include building to think—creating tangible expressions of ideas enables organizational thinking to develop concretely through action; learning faster by failing early (and often)—making things tangible allows small, low-impact failures to occur early, resulting in faster organizational learning; giving permission to explore new behaviors—the presence of a prototype encourages new behaviors, relieving individuals of the responsibility to consciously change what they do. The significance of these objectives is illustrated through reference to client organizational change projects. The article concludes by reflecting on the value of applying this less analytical design-based approach to helping organizations transform the ways they work.