Prototyping

What is protyping?

Prototyping is a process of translating an idea or a concept into experimental action(s). Having established a connection to the source (presencing) and clarified a sense of the future that wants to emerge (crystallizing), prototyping allows an individual or group to explore the future by doing different smaller experiments.

Another definition for prototyping is rapid cycle experimentation.

Prototypes are early drafts of what the final project might look like. They always go through several iterations based on the feedback generated from stakeholders during their implementation. The feedback is the basis for refining the concept and its underlying assumptions; and leads mostly to a new, adapted prototype. Prototypes are practical mini versions of a project that can be tested. Later, after integrating all the feedback, it will become a pilot project that can be shared and eventually scaled.

Facilitating prototyping in your hub

As a host you can play a helpful role in helping participants in the movement from Presencing to Prototyping. Planting the seeds already in the beginning!

As an entrypoint you can use the last questions of the guided journaling (Stepping into the Future), introduced during the second live session:

• Prototyping: Over the next three months, if you were to prototype a microcosm of the future in which you could discover 'the new' by doing something, what would that prototype look like?

• Action: If you were to take on the project of bringing your intention into reality, what practical first steps would you take over the next 3 days?

Possible process:

(1) Crystallizing

• Ask people to go back to their answers of the journaling, let them read in silence.

• It has been a week or two since they did the guided journaling practice, so maybe some new insights have emerged. Give some time for individual journaling, for people to crystallize their vision and intention. You can do free individual journaling or give some guiding questions, for example:

• What do you think/feel reading your answers? What surprises/touches you?

• What is wanting to born in my life and work right now?

• What future do I want to create? ('Wouldn't it be fantastic if...')

• What is the aspired impact of this future, on whom? Why? How?

• Co-creation: What becomes possible, just because this group of people is together, in this hub, at this moment? Are there any allies in this group/hub?

(2) Ask participants to write one idea/dream/prototype on a large post-it or piece of paper. Encourage people to describe it as concretely as possible. Hang them on the wall and let everyone speak for about 1 minute about their idea. Not everyone has to write one!

(3) Clusters: ask whether some ideas want to merge in a small group. Only if the ideas are close to each other!

(4) 2D prototyping: Ask the participants/small groups to reflect on following questions (see example below) and write their answers down on a flip chart.

VISION:

• What is the long term change you wish to see? What is the aspired impact? On whom and why?

EXPERIMENTAL QUESTIONS:

• What are the questions you want to explore? (Example: I wish that our education system would integrate play and art in how it teaches science to children. What kinds of approaches work? What does it take for teachers to adopt them?)

DESCRIBE PROTOTYPE: Remember principle: 0.8: Iterate, Iterate, Iterate: “Fail fast to succeed sooner”, as David Kelley from IDEO says.

• Do something rough, rapid, and then iterate. Design a tight review structure that accelerates fast feedback and evolution. (Example: Can be small, by doing an experiment in your classroom or maybe you can set up an experiment in 1-4 schools in your city, where you can work with science teachers in one of their classes.)

WHO IS THE TEAM? Remember: five people can change the world. Find a small group of fully committed people and cultivate your shared commitment.

Who could be your:

• core team? (e.g. the team developing the educational idea above, and 1-2 lead teachers)

• core holding group? (e.g. the set of teachers who have experimented with the team)

• supporting network? (e.g. parents, administrators, other teachers who support this work)

FEEDBACK: how will you collect and integrate feedback?

CREATE A TIMELINE: What are the 3 NEXT STEPS, who will do what, by when? How will you communicate? What is a very first step — a micro-experiment — that can be done before the next hub meeting? (e.g. to meet with a teacher and plan a class together). Commit to doing that.

(5) 3D sculpting

The value of 3D-sculpting is to help to move your ideas out of your head(s) onto the table, for you (as a team) to look at. It enables the team to relate to the same thing and it surfaces the assumptions and mental models you are holding.

It allows you to look at the system from (literally) different perspectives and to interrogate to a greater depth by mining insights, information and questions.

It's a symbolic representation of current reality and future possibilities, and as a such anything can symbolize any aspect of the system: stakeholders, relationships and forces. Together you make explicit what each element symbolizes.

Behind this exercise lies a huge body of knowledge and awareness, which is simplified here without losing its essence. The questions that are given are very intentionally crafted and clustered in the four directions to access insights from different sources of intelligence and archetypal perspectives. For this version of the exercise we use the four directions of the compass as an orientation.

How to start? As a room set-up you can use tables to work on or cardboards on the floor. We advise to make groups 3 to maximum 7 people per team.

What do you need as tools and materials? For 3D sculpting you can use materials like Lego, Play Doh, pipe cleaners, cotton balls, stones, marbles, string of wool, small toys,... See below for an example.

Process:

We recommend that the hub host or any experienced practitioner first gives a demo the exercise, in front of the room, in a fast-forwarded way.

Part 1

Collectively form a sculpture that represents the current perception of your intended prototype and the system/context that it wants to change.

Describe each step you do to your partner(s). The objects are symbols of whatever you choose, anything can represent anything: stakeholders, relationships, intangible forces... Make sure you put yourself in the sculpture too!

Be aware in placing the objects on the holding paper spatially in relation to each other, eg. there is information in whether they are distant or connected.

Avoid writing or drawing on the holding paper because that is harder to change from sculpture 1 —> sculpture 2.

Finish your sculpture in about 15-20 minutes.

Part 2

Reflect on your sculpture from four directions / perspectives. One team member reads aloud the question (below), all listen deeply and someone may write down key points.

Beyond right and wrong!: No need to discuss, just listen deeply to all perspectives. Unless there is an element missing that needs to be added. Do not change anything before having gone through the whole process (4 directions).

Emphasize the requirement to physically move position around the table, each time you go to the next direction, it is a vital part of mining more deeply into the different perspectives (literally and metaphorically) that are accessible from the different directions.

The questions from the 4 directions: “When you look at this sculpture…”

1.EAST (FEELING & RELATIONSHIP) What do you love, or what ignites your best

energies? What other emotions come up? If this emotion could talk, what would it say? What are the essential relationships (connections or separations) between the parts - and how do these feel?

2.SOUTH (TRUTH & ACTION) What are the key conflicts, and hard truths that you are facing going forward? Where does the power lie?

3.WEST (PERSPECTIVE) What are bottlenecks that prevent the current system from evolving?

4.NORTH (PURPOSE) What is ending in this situation [wanting to die], and What is seeking to emerge [wanting to be born]? What deeper potential or call of the future do you now want to bring into reality through your prototype?

(Source: Adapted from the Ashland Institute, ashlandinstitute.org)

Part 3

Together, change your sculpture such that it better represents the emerging future that you want to create.

Part 4:

Reflections: Capture the essential points that have come clear to you throughout this process (someone writes them down).

·What were the key shifts from sculpture 1 —> sculpture 2?

·What are the leverage points for bringing the new reality into being?

·Any possible obstacles?

·Next step: “What would you need to do now to give life to this emerging future?”

(6) Plenary presentations

Ask all groups to give a brief presentation:

·What is the prototype?

·What are the key-insights from part 4 of the exercise?