Learn what our Methodology is about
We’ll explain all of that below. You’ll learn about the Methodology in just 5 minutes!
How did we get here
Future Of Work
We believe the future of work is reached by constant participatory change through prototyping. Our methodology empowers teams to work on their organization by constant experimenting. It enables leaders to share responsibility and reach the maximum potential of their teams.
Don't be a copy cat
We see all kinds of progressive organizations around us. These are perfect cases to get inspiration from. But your company isn’t the same as these organizations. Your context is different, your culture is different, your market is different.
Don’t try to copy their way of working, their structure, or culture one on one. This will be as effective as selling something completely different from one day to another.
Understand that these organizations didn’t use a revolution to become where they are now. They didn’t just implement their culture, way of working, or structure from one day to another. These organizations experimented all the way to what they are now.
You are unique
Understand that you are unique, so create your own unique experimental way to reach your goals. Don’t copycat, but use their learnings while you are doing this along the way.
Big changes will throw you back and will make your people less engaged. We don’t believe in revolutions, reorganizations. We believe in getting there by evolution, step by step.
Experiment and prototype your own unique progressive future of work. But use knowledge! We have many practices from the most progressive organizations. Experiments helped these companies to get where they are now.
Be The Change
It’s difficult to change a whole organization. This is why we developed our methodology. A new way of evolution. Taking small experimental steps to your goals, your purpose. Not driven by management or directors, but initiated by every employee in the company.
This isn’t a new way of working like scrum, this isn’t a framework like agile. This is something bigger which will bring all these hypes together and make you use the aspects of these methods that will fit your company the best. Even if new methods are introduced, keep using our methodology to use this new knowledge to experiment and grow.
The only way to change is to change constantly. This will be the last organizational change you will need. Let your organization thrive, be the change.
The Methodology
Our evidence-based methodology is proven in practice in more organizations every day. Teams are getting more autonomous, engaged, and productive. Organizations are becoming agile in their own reinvented way, not because of a method from a book. Our methodology is created to get an organization in a constant flow of change.
This by letting employees create their own prototypes to solve their own problems or grasp opportunities.
Step By Step
1.
Follow the tension
Tension?
Tension is normally not a desirable feeling. You don’t want to feel tense. But for the process of prototyping, we embrace tensions. It’s something that is holding you back from the things you want to achieve as a team or individual. In other words, tensions are also opportunities. Defining and really understanding the tension is an important first step to get rid of it. After defining the tension, you want to find a solution and prototype to achieve that solution. In principle, it’s important to define a tension that is just right.
Find The Tension
Ask yourself the following questions: What is something that bothers you every day? What is inefficient or frustrating with the way you work? What is not in line with the mission of the organization?
Define your tension
Out of all the options, select the one thing that hurts the most or has the most chance of success. It should also be safe enough to take as a first step, don’t choose something that is too radical.
Create Context
Ask yourself: Why is it a challenge?
It’s really key to understand what is going on and why it’s necessary to solve the tension. Look through the eyes of your colleagues or employees to get more perspective. This will create the right context.
Reframe to Challenge
Last but not least, reframe the challenge in a very clear way by rewriting or rethinking what you’ve just come up with. Make sure it’s concise, not too abstract but not too specific either. It has to be actionable after all.
Generate Ideas
Next up, it’s time to dive into idea generation. Go into a brainstorming setting and generate a lot of ideas on how to solve the challenge. We recommend post-its or note app. Any solution that comes to mind should be written down. Big or small, Crazy or dull. It doesn’t matter.
Design Your Prototype
When you have enough ideas, it’s time to prioritize and start designing the actual prototype. Now turn a couple of ideas and hypothesis into a prototype using the prototyping.work canvas. Try to create a radical change in a not so radical scope. Make sure to keep the prototypes small and tangible.
Learn more and download the Prototying.work Canvas here.
Start Validating
Bring the designed prototype to life with your chosen scope. Test it out, validate it. And learn from the feedback.
2.
Start prototyping
3.
Evaluate & learn
Evaluate
Learn by doing. Validate the prototype in a small setting. If needed, adjust along the way based on the learnings. Evaluate and scale the prototype for a bigger scope.
Either Adapt
You learned a lot during the first iteration for the prototype. In the current state, you cannot scale the prototype. But that doesn’t mean you have to stop directly with it. Just adapt, update the prototype based on the feedback and learnings. Then take the updated prototype to the next stage and increase the scope.
Or Scale
The prototype was a huge success. It’s time to turn the prototype in an actual change. Think carefully about the next step. Is it already tried and tested enough to suggest this for the entire organization or department? If it is, go for it. Or if you want to test it in a bigger setting, take the successful prototype to the next round.
Need more help to start Prototyping?
Check out our introduction tasters!
Our Prototyping Tasters are digital sessions where you can experience the methodology first-hand, alone or with your team. We will go into more depth than described here and give more attention to the rhythm of change: prototyping in a continuous flow, for the best results.
