The Contribution of Design and Prototyping to Enhancing Organisational Growth, Management and Entrepreneurship

Abstract

Prototyping is a creative activity which usually results in a new product or process. In addition however, when engaged in by teams or groups, it encourages positive interpersonal relationships and strong team coherence. This paper is concerned with this latter activity and is referred to as "prototype as experience" or "experiencing the artefact". The paper briefly reviews Schrages use of the expressions, "prototypes as hypothesis, marketplace and playground" and elaborates on his notion of "charismodel" as an ideal state in the prototyping process. It also comments on the role of convergence in establishing "unity with diversity" in the team. The paper brings all of this together by expressing the prototyping activity in the form of an "S" curve and relating this to other "S" curves found in organisational dynamics. It concludes with some suggestions of our future intentions to test, by experiment, some of the ideas and speculations in this paper.