A Practical Guide to Prototyping at Work

0:00Helen:Hi, I'm Sarah. And I'm Helen. And this is the Squiggly Careers podcast, where every week we borrow some brilliance from a person, a place, an idea, and we try to turn that curiosity into something useful for you and your squiggly career. And this week is audio only and is feeling a little bit different to record, Helen. Why might that be? um that that's because we're we're in new york um and which is to launch the u.s version of our new book learn like a lobster so far so good um except we have arrived in new york to the biggest blizzard in 10 years uh in new york and it's an adventure we didn't know if we were going to get here now we've got here and we can't get very far but it's you know it's fun but it has changed how we were going to record the podcast so for anybody that normally likes to watch it sorry but we don't we don't look our best we've been for a walk in central park we've been snowed on trying to help me whilst commenting that her shoes had more grip and then to break an umbrella snapped an umbrella in half it's been a lot of fun everybody but if you do hear no and there are massive chunks of snow falling down from outside the hotel that we are staying in because it's really high up so if you do hear occasional like thuds um that that's just what that is it's just like snow will occasionally just hit the window um so it's just it's very memorable um yeah if you hear the thuds if at least not boring audio isn't yeah it's not boring if the audio isn't quite what normally is if you hear weird noises in the background you you know why but we never think that actually get in the way of learning.

1:43And so today, today, we are still committed to helping you with your squiggly career and your learning. And the topic we're going to talk about is prototyping. And we are borrowing brilliance from Nesta, which is an organisation that Sarah and I have followed and admired for a really long time. They have, I think they just produce a lot of really useful templates, tools, they do brilliant research, really broad range of things. And they have a very good 52-page document which talks through their prototyping framework and we wanted to talk about the framework and bring it to life for you because we think it is quite useful for everyone to use in the context of their careers.

2:26Helen:And we've even just been for breakfast in New York because somehow some of the cafes are open although I don't quite know how I don't know how those people have made it to work and we even spent that whole breakfast talking about prototyping so we are so committed to the squiggly cause after falling down in the snow and going to Central Park and seeing the Home Alone Bridge I think it was a Home Alone Bridge with lots of snow around it um we did then still talk about the podcast so it doesn't matter where you are in the world we we're always always thinking about squiggly careers and a fair bit of that conversation were we were talking about the difference between experimenting prototyping and improving because I do think like we always say the words that you use make a difference they help us to interpret and to understand the job to do um and I think sometimes it is good to debate those words you might just be like oh it's just semantics but I think the reason that it's good to have those conversations like in your teams or just with yourself is are you talking about the same thing here and is it just a different word for the same thing or do we think there's something different because when we started off talking about experiments versus prototypes instinctively I think we both felt they were different they weren't the same but it took us a little while just to almost like pull them apart kind of go what is it that feels different so perhaps if I explain how we see experiments and then Helen talk about how we see prototypes and this is not this is not in the Nesta guide everybody they just go straight into like how to prototype in in quite a practical way that we will talk through.

3:59Helen:But I do think it's important that, you know, you start off slightly more zoomed out and you just sort of connect the dots between some different things that we often talk about. So the way that we see experiments, and this is just how we also use them in our team and in our work, is experiments start with an unknown and they can be fast, quick, easy. You can sort of get started with an experiment today. If I wanted to experiment with how to reflect for five minutes a day today I could just do that I could have a hypothesis I can just start experimenting they're sort of fast flexible and often quite easy to to get started with and you don't need to have done very much work beforehand I think you can sometimes you might do but in in a lot of the cases I think you can experiment the the sort of barriers to entry to getting started are quite low and I don't think with prototyping it's that the barriers to entry I may be learning it's just it's a much more considered process so we can all we can all decide to prototype something but um there is a process to follow that is more likely to make that prototyping effective and we're going to talk through the process but as Sarah and I were reflecting over breakfast I mean people that sit near us while we're at breakfast must think well they're having a very intense conversation over some avocado on toast but we were saying oh actually we probably do we do a lot of this process for prototyping quite a lot but we do it in a round about way so we don't always get the I don't think we don't always get the value from prototyping because we kind of do it informally and there is just a little bit more of a process to follow for an effective prototype versus an experiment the other thing Sarah and I talked about as well was sort of continual improvement so the way I see this in my head is a triangle obviously because I can only think in frameworks but I sort of see that you have continual improvement which is you know small changes that you make to make something better basically at work and that happens and then you have experimenting doing things you've not done before to get some kind of fast insights on it and then I think you have prototyping which is a more considered process and there tends to be an element of building in there and anyone can do you'd have to be an expert anyone can do them and there are loads of different ways you can do all of those things in your squiggly career.

6:18It's just, we think that prototyping, if you've not done it or considered it before, there are some benefits of doing it in a, well, like following the framework, basically, what we're going to talk through. There are some sort of, I don't want to say the word structured because I don't want to put people off, but there are some stages to how to prototype effectively, which we're going to talk through today.

6:35Helen:And actually, when I was using Claude to ask these questions before we had our conversation, which is always why I think you should do both it was a good example of the critical thinking that you and i did was actually more useful than claude so good good to know thank goodness our brains are still helpful not what i do yet not yet it's still i'm still building in the background the helen bot which will replace you um still that's going to come that's my 2026 goal but um they they claude said um experiments are about learning whereas prototypes are about building and actually just listening to you there with like the words that you used um i probably wouldn't be as i think that's almost too simplistic because do i think you learn from prototyping yes but i do i do see that as like a use it might it's almost like a useful starting point for a discussion whereas um you know you're always testing our hypothesis with an experiment i do think with prototypes you do have a more of an idea of what you're trying to build but there's still you're just like oh but i'm not sure which bits are going to work and you don't want to over commit time or money or resources um because you're not quite sure there's still unknowns so i do think they have kind of quite a lot in common but i think almost the examples and the situations where you might use one versus the other end up being quite different um and perhaps that's a good a good thing to talk about in your team if you were to kind of go well how good on a scale of one to ten do we think we are at experimenting, prototyping and improving on that scale?

8:08Helen:Where would you be? Because actually I think that's a good reflection of, okay, well, why are we better at one of these than the other? What would you say, Helen, for Amazing If, where are we on experimenting versus prototyping versus improving? Fewer doing scores out of 10. I think we're good at incremental improvements because I think we're constantly kind of challenge and build. I think you and I are sort of quite critical and we're quite involved in our business. So I think we're constantly sort of challenging and building. better. Experiments, I think we are good at that too. I'd say kind of very good, continued improvement, good at experimenting, some room to do that better.

8:42And I think we are not good at following a formal process of prototyping. I think there have been examples of when we've done it, but I don't think we started that going, this is going to be a prototype and we're going to go through these stages. So that's how I would rank them. What about you?

8:59Helen:yeah in my head I'd gone in that same in the same order like improving experiments prototyping and I sort of gone eight seven four to five out of ten because I often find scales are a useful starting point to then go okay well like why why would prototypes be the bottom like you and I have both put it at the bottom and what is it that we are not doing and as you described I just don't think we're intentional enough about prototyping so then you do miss out on the value I think we sort of do a half a job on prototyping. I think we've got a lot better at experiments because we wrote about experiments in Learn Like a Lobster.

9:37Helen:We've done a whole chapter on it, particularly easy and everyday experiments. We've more built that into our team ways of working. We have an experiments channel in teams and people across the team share the experiments that they're running. They're sharing what they're learning. We're really big fans of the work of Anne Law and her book on tiny experiments. And I can see that our team really like her work, too. And it's kind of captured people's imaginations and really stuck. So I think we were probably a five to six on experiments. And I can see that that's nudged up maybe one or two over the past 12 months.

10:10Helen:And so I think our prototypes would be our biggest work on it of those three. So again, maybe a good discussion to talk about as a team. And I think that's a really good point. Like prototyping, as we'll go through the different stages, it is a team process. Because you might be able to involve in it. And I think the more you do this together and everyone starts using the language, language um the easier this is so there are four parts of the framework that we're going to go through so i'll just say them so you've got kind of the structure in your head and obviously if you want to look back at this afterwards we've got the pod sheet which is a one-page summary you can download that from our website amazingif.com just go to the podcast page and you'll find it but the four parts of the framework are one doing the groundwork two building a specification three testing and iterating and four learning and deciding and if any of that sounds a bit scary informal don't worry it's not we'll talk through what each one means and we thought we'd try and bring it to life with um an idea that has come to the amazing if team actually from katie barnes who is a definite squiggly supporter um who had sent a picture of her diary which she'd sort of hacked to become a squiggly development diary um so it was a it was a it was a hard diary you know like one of the ones that you have for the year.

11:25And she'd put in for every week, like a squiggly kind of prompt. And it sort of led to this idea of, oh, could we, could we, should we, would we create a squiggly career development diary for our audience? And that is a TBC question, but we thought it would help to take this prototyping structure, apply it to that idea, just to bring it to life for you.

11:49Helen:So the first part, which is doing the groundwork, The bit that really stands out for me here, because I think once you've got this, it's also something you'll keep coming back to is what's the problem we're trying to solve? And I always like that as a starting point for lots of things, for processes, for projects. So kind of being clear on that. And then once you know that problem, connected to that will always be, well, who are you solving for? So make sure you're clear on your customers or internal people. um I liked this question that Nesta put in the document what assumptions are we making I just think that's a really helpful provocation because everybody saying their assumptions out loud rather than assumptions going and said I think also gets people's get encourages people to sort of hold their starting point quite lightly you know because otherwise if those assumptions are just you keep them to yourself then they probably influence even maybe what you might build or what you might test or even the questions that you ask um so for us helen if you were thinking about this like what are some assumptions you would be making if we were doing a squiggly career development diary um what what would you what would you be writing on the wall um i'm assuming that it it looks like pretty much the picture that i got sent so it's a physical diary i've made that assumption it's a physical diary and I have made the assumption that it's for a year whereas actually you know it could be for a quarter maybe people get bored of this stuff so it could be a quarter but I've made the assumption it's for a year um I've made the assumption that people would uh pay for this I want to pay for it and it would be something they would buy because um I'm thinking oh this is something that we could sell to our audience uh and I think I'm probably also making the assumption that more people than Katie want it like yes our community definitely wants something like this so there would be some of my very early assumptions that I'm making yeah interesting so one of my assumptions was it would be something that you would plug into your work diary as in on like online um your outlook diary we both use outlook um or your google calendar so I and because also obviously I hadn't seen Katie's picture so that was probably a bit of an anchor so I don't know what that is so when you said to me because I was I was preparing for this oh a development diary or a calendar I was like oh yeah so something we would somehow have as like a plug-in or a co-pilot plug-in or something like that so I'd gone kind of tech first I suppose this kind of idea of adding it in so that then makes it harder to pay for you know and you're like well how do I don't know how you charge I mean obviously you can charge for apps and stuff um I I think I also have an assumption of I was like I'm definitely not sure yet if this is a good thing you know like as in I suppose because I don't use again an assumption I have is I don't use things like this so I would never buy a journal or I would never buy a physical diary which I know some people still do have like you still have quite physical things um so also probably one of my oh is that the things and it's not just probably assumptions maybe it's things that just go unsaid is I'm probably quite skeptical of this idea like I'm not I'm not sure about it yet I'm definitely not bought into it and I wonder if that's also quite useful to have you know if you're doing this as a team just being like there's no right or wrong here but how how almost like how bought in are are we all feeling like today and then it doesn't matter it doesn't matter if you're you might be a seven and I might be a three and that's fine because that's the point of prototyping as long as you are open to learning listening all the things that we're then going to talk about um but i do think it might be quite helpful to like hear that from a group because i've worked on projects before where i think people might have started at a three but no one said it um and then actually that creates issues like further further down it's quite good to track as well as you go isn't it whether with the subsequent stages whether any of the evidence or data you get back from the other stages changes how people feel about it i also really liked because you and i haven't talked about some of these questions in the context of the idea of the development diary I think it's quite useful if you're doing this as a team like give people five minutes and a stack of post-it notes and then you write so you answer the questions like who are we solving it for what's the problem what's the assumptions of making what else available you give your five minutes to fill those out you put the post-it notes up and then you could kind of cluster them and you could obviously do this virtually or in person but you cluster them to see like where are things similar like we might have said oh we say we're solving the same problem that you know development needs to kind of be in your diary if it's going to get done or something like that.

16:33But then we might have ended up with some very different things. You know, the format of it are very different. And I think if you say it out loud, you might influence somebody's thoughts. Whereas if you give, you know, a quiet five minutes, you're probably going to get some more distinct insights from everyone. And just one other thing before we move on to the next part of the framework that I thought was useful that Nesta mentioned here, which is the who do we need to involve? And I think this talks to Sarah's point around, you know, people might have different levels of buy-in. I think it also, as you go into the next phase, it is useful thinking who outside of this team or this room could we bring in to sort of the prototyping group.

17:11So Nesta say you need a core team. So that might be the people that are kind of bringing the prototype to life. You might want a sponsor. So someone who's going to really sort of champion the project, maybe bring other people in. And then also the critical friends. So maybe those are, they are not the people who are inside the day-to-day team or on the day-to-day project, But they are people who can be critical and offer a perspective. So you don't get stuck in a, you know, everyone loves this idea and maybe is ignoring some of the outside perspective or challenge that might be helpful.

17:42Helen:So then we're into phase two, which is, I think, my favourite of the four. If you're allowed to have favourites as part of a prototyping process, which is building the specification. So this is when you bring to life a simple version of the idea. and Nesta suggests a few different ways that you can do that you can sketch you could just sketch an idea on a post-it note you could design a web page you could do a simple mock-up of some screens or a process anything that you can do I think it's almost you're trying to take it from an abstract idea or concept into something that you can see and understand and I've actually done this quite a few times with different projects where it's like well what would almost like what would the press release look like I've done that quite a few times um what would a poster look like um we've done it a few times with books what would a front cover look like again just to bring to life before we got to learn like a lobster we've got quite a few book ideas we always have quite a few book ideas and again you can just do the covers like what would a cover design look like and it's not about a cover you're not prototyping the cover design you're prototyping a concept for a book but it's just the way that everybody can understand that you can sort of see it and talk about it I have them in like past innovation teams that I've been in like back in the day when we used to launch apps and things um you'd often like do mock-ups of pages of what the app looked like and people might think oh this needs to be really advanced this needs to be like a storyboard or I need to have all the you know all the functionality in you really don't it's It's just making something slightly more tangible than the idea that's in your head.

19:23And I think it's really surprising how much conversation that can unlock. You don't have to have the whole thing mapped out. It doesn't have to be perfect. But just this is what it could look like. Here's an example of what a few of the web pages could look like. And you don't need to have all the copy on there. You could just have like some sort of blocks with some pictures in there. And you'd say, OK, this would be where we did the About Us section. and here's what the where the products would look like so you don't need to make this perfect I think that's really important for like building bringing it to life but it's to really make it

19:55Helen:tangible so people can talk about it so here if we were doing the squiggly career development diary you would mock up a page of a diary you know as a physical page of a diary that would be a really a really obvious and easy way to do to do that that would also be really interesting just to see what people did you know because I'm like when people imagine what a diary looks like now like what's in everybody's head and at the same time what you might do is like we'll mock up what this would look like if it was in your calendar your work diary and so maybe you would get everybody to do those because those two things are already quite visual things and I think if you've got everybody to do that you'd be like oh you know for the um one that's in your diary like your work calendar some people are very into using colors I actually saw somebody um when I was with asda the other week and they showed me their diary it was very color-based um and so maybe because lots of people associate squiggly with yellow maybe it always goes in as yellow and maybe it's always the first 10 minutes at your at the start of your day maybe it's always nine o 'clock you always see that 10 minutes of yellow and maybe there is a prompt or a question and that's i don't know if that's what that looks like but if i was building it that's what i would be drawing I'd be drawing a Monday my Monday I'd be drawing that box I'd be making it like a colour I would put a prompt in there as an example um and then I'd sort of write times five because you're going to do that for every day but then somebody else might prototype that in a very that might be really different to what other people had imagined maybe other people had imagined oh um I thought it would be something that you did on the first Monday of every month with in a team meeting with everybody else i i in my head it was a joint development diary it wasn't just for you as an individual um and you'd be like okay that's really interesting who is this for is this just for individuals or is this for teams that's a really good question i i like this phase i know i like this one but even again i think and i hadn't thought this before i thought oh there's one prototype but i also really like the idea of giving people like a day or two like to create a prototype like either a sketch or a screenshot or something and then comparing and you you need to come at the end of it with like okay so this is the one that we're going to take into the next phase but having some like tangible oh it could look like this because I really hadn't seen it as yours I love the idea that it's like this yellow moment in the day just to um add another thing that I really like that Nesta did in case anyone's thinking oh um that Helen and Sarah talk about this diary but I'd I want to launch a new service thing or something for your business um they also use lego men in the they've got this picture in the document it's really i think they've got a shoe box and there's a service that they're they were kind of building a specification for but you could just like use a lego men imagine it's like employees or its customers go any physically going around and saying oh this would be the journey that they would go on and spend time here and then they would go here and it again it's that simple you can have a piece of paper that you draw the i don't know the flow on and you just move your lego people around as if it was customers or employees or whoever the audience is but it's just a way to bring it to life to kind of have a conversation about it so just because i think the more real it becomes the more useful insight you're going to get from the prototyping process and i think the watch out um and see i don't know whether you read something in the nested document that helps you with this is i think this is sometimes where i get stuck because i like this bit so I could just keep coming up with ideas for what this would look like but I suppose there is a point where you've got to stop building specs or like ways that this could work and you have to start testing it and so I think it's probably just if you're leading this process and you probably do need somebody ultimately accountable for sort of like leading everyone through the process going okay I think each one of these stages needs to have quite a distinct start and finish like when I was reading it it felt like they were a stage and you knew what stage you were in and this is probably where we sometimes go wrong at amazing if is like we don't know what stage we're in and we don't know when we're moving to the next stage so you and I have quite a lot of conversations I think about this phase where we have ideas and we're like oh it could be this or it could be this or it could be that but then the next phase for so phase three is then testing and iterating like you've almost got to go I'm going to stop I'm going to stop building and start testing so Helen where do you start with testing because I think you've done some interesting work on the podcast actually around testing recently is there a few ways again that Nesta have sort of advocated that you can do this testing and iterating phase of it so the important thing is you're taking it to real people and I think that could be potential customers though I also think it is useful to take it to people who almost from the outset wouldn't be potential customers why wouldn't you use this so I think their insight is it's also you know I think sometimes detractors their critique is is actually just as useful as the people that are like yes I'd love I'd love to do this so you could do like a co-creation session so you could get some people in a room or on a zoom and say you know this is what the development diary looks like for example build it better like what do you love what would you move and again I quite like if you're doing this if you're if you are in a room I would just get like a big piece of a3 for our example for example I'd get like a big bit of a3 and I would have all the features like on a post-it note and I would say that move them around take out what you don't want add a new feature in so that some people feel like they are they are creating it and but you could do exactly the same sort of thing on like a Miro or just as long as lots of people can be in the same document can be on the same the same thing that they're creating um we've talked about challenge and build before so um what do you like you might say keep and kill what do you want to keep what do you want to kill the reason i like challenge and build is it's i don't think it's as binary as keep and kill i think it's got a what's not working and what would need to be different for that to be better which i i think has more learning involved in the process um also like just give people the opportunity to use it for a week and come back.

26:04Because I think there is, I always remember that stuff when I used to work for Procter and Gamble, and there's like the first moment of truth thing, which is when someone sees it, like, oh, I love that idea. I love it. And it's, or I hate it, or, oh, I don't get it. Like first moment of truth, it's really useful. But then second moment of truth is what happens after. So when they use the product, and then that is often a very, oh, it's better than I thought it was, or I really like the cover, or I really like the concept. but actually when I started to use it it just didn't really work for me and so you kind of want I think if you get you can get feedback in a room on the day but when people go away I think that insight is really useful too like build just building a bit of time yeah here I think actually

26:44Helen:I almost think you get quite different outputs depending on how you test and if you only test when you're there I think it's always slightly I don't know you because people will ask you questions and it is quite hard to not explain whereas I've always found it fascinating when you create something and then you just don't explain it you know you just go to let's say we were doing the diary idea you give people and let's say it was the one in your in your calendar so the tech one the way that I would test and iterate that is I would give people one page of instructions and then get people to test it for two weeks but they can't talk to you and so like did the did the instruction did people fall at the first hurdle did they even did the instructions even make sense because that's where you've got things like oh I thought it was super clear and then someone else is like oh I didn't get it when you said a yellow box I don't understand I don't understand what you mean by that um or and then actually when people have done it for the two weeks you know did they did they stick to it for the first two or three days and then actually lost a bit of interest or something more important came in or actually was that was the reminder helpful but actually people want the flexibility of doing it at any time in a day like if I think about the my own way of those kind of things it's very rare that I do the same thing at the same time every day I don't find that very appealing so I can imagine if I was testing it I might be like I do want it in my diary at the start of every day but I don't want the expectation of I must do it between nine and nine ten but then does that mean and I don't do it so you know like I think that's here where where they're talking about testing and iterating they want it to be and it's always a funny phrase isn't it like real life because you're like well the other life isn't fake life but you know like it needs to be as close to the what you're imagining as possible here I think in terms of if you wouldn't be part of whatever that prototype is when people were experiencing it you need to take yourself out of it um if you're not going to be there to answer questions or explain you have to just let people experience the process the project the idea whatever it might be and like have a play we're finding it now with we've got two tech products you could sounds a bit lofty but you that you mean you could call them that that we've launched in the last six months so we've got our learn like a lobster profiler you can still both go and have a play with both with these if anyone wants to and they're both free and then we've got a say the hard thing gpt and i think we are in unintentional testing and iterating at the moment because we haven't designed this like a prototype we probably would have been better because of it if we if we had done but we are we have just put those out there um you're not we're not there as people are using those gpts or using that profiler and people are getting in touch with us and letting us know the bugs or what's missing or what's not working and And so we're sort of live testing and iterating, probably with people who are interested rather than, like you said, like the cynics, because that's probably how they're finding it.

29:51Helen:And so they also want to be helpful. They want to help us make it better. But I think we are definitely getting feedback that I couldn't have imagined or anticipated if it wasn't some people at Cambridge University using the say the hard thing GPT and then literally sending us a list of seven bullet points and going, have you thought about any of these things? and this is sort of what we need and we really like it but we can only use it if you think and I just looked at that list and thought we've not had a conversation about a single one of those things and that's so so useful for us to then think about well how do we build it better I do think there is an important skill as well at this stage because if you are let's say you're the person who's leading this I think the skill is we often talk about like saying the hard thing and hearing the hard thing I think you have to you have to be okay hearing the hard thing here because some people are going to say I don't like it I think I used it and didn't work for me and you might want to defend your project at this stage and be like well that the reason we built it like this or you're not our target customer or whatever else is in your head and I think you have to get really good your aim here is to listen is to create something that is then used by other people and your role is to then listen to how they engage with it it is not to defend um the the the concept or the idea or the products right and i do i do think that's a skill because the longer you work on something and the more you believe it the harder i think it is to hear somebody else be critical of it which is what really testing and iterating you're inviting you're inviting that critique of your and some of it might be amazing but also you've got to be prepared that some of it won't necessarily be what you want to hear yeah I think you have to and I think I've learned this from experience detach yourself from what it is you're prototyping you've got to make your prototyping not personal because we've both worked in jobs where I have created things from scratch in quite a prototyping type way and I think I have made the mistake sometimes of connecting what people are saying about something if it's negative you know it's they're saying the hard thing and I'm connecting that with they are judging me as a result so this doesn't work and then I jump to and then that means you're not good at what you do whereas versus this just doesn't work and this is and this is why I think the difference now that I have is I sometimes in workshops do live challenge and build on our work where I am literally saying um what's one thing you'd change about this how useful is this out of 10 and it is and people are saying quite a lot of hard things about work that we do but because I've almost made it quite playful and I think I've detach my own sense of personal worth from what people are saying instead I just sort of find it I'm just like oh this is really interesting it's actually really those insights are really useful but I don't think I so it's just one of those things I think when you're reflecting on the different stages of prototyping some bits of it might absolutely play to your strengths like I think when I'm the building bit I'm like I think I place to both of our strengths I think this bit is almost I've had to do some unlearning and relearning I've had to learn to be to be better at this bit and then I just don't think I do phase four so do you want to talk about that I just don't think we do that I think we ignore phase four phase four our um our breakfast with reflections are that um yeah phase four is probably the biggest gap for us to work on if we want to get better at prototyping yeah by gap gaping hole in the prototyping process um so So base four is learning and deciding.

33:38And I hate saying that because obviously like learning is so important to us. But I do think we're good at the learning part. I think it's the deciding. So let us tell you what Nesta say about this stage. So they say that this stage four, which is like the final part of the prototyping process, is that you review what you've learned and you choose the next step. And I think that we are good at reviewing what we've learned. I think we regularly kind of go, OK, what are we learning? What's working? What's not working? we do that in that I think that's sort of like the improvement thing I talked about earlier that's a continual way of us thinking but I don't think we often formally decide on what we do next and so as a result maybe some things sort of start and then they just sort of like I don't know they just sort of dwindle away like I remember ages ago I started creating like the you know like I forgot what I called it but like a squiggly career survey thing and I was like oh I kind of started it but it's not because it's not got a team around it I've done like two iterations of that but I think because I've tried to do it on my own and I've not got a team around it it's not had both the formality and the support to kind of get it going beyond that and then it sort of just dwindles away we don't decide do you know what that we that we should stop that now because the reason it's not working is it needs a team it's a good idea but we just sort of let some things dwindle or there's not this clarity around what prototypes are in progress and what stage are they at like there's just there's just not that view it's just there's some initiatives that we've kicked off because we like the idea and we think there might be something in it and some of them might continue and some of them might not but there's no which is that um which is that profiler

35:19Helen:that tells you that you're not a complete finisher that we both done so that's quite it's really old school now so i don't i'm definitely not recommending everyone goes to do that but when helen initiators i'm sure i think i can't remember which one i was i think you and i were different but what this talks about is really old by the way everyone so please if you could have gone do it check that it's still valid and useful but it did talk about the roles that you play in a team um helen and i were both like the initiators or plants or those which are basically like you come up with ideas you grow ideas all that kind of stuff and then it sort of told you like which is the one that you're both sort of worst at and not both of us but like this obviously us as individuals at the time but neither of us are complete what they call complete to finishers which is essentially you know like I often I often think it is like the hard bit you know it's the last 10 % right of going the due diligence here of not only what have we learned but then what does that mean for us in terms of the decisions we are going to make um and like Nesta used the words like to move forward you need a business plan and measurement and i think both you and i'd be like do we need some ideas or shall we create another prototype for the business plan and measurement and so this is where i think you know back to and we all we all know this is true but when you have a range of people around a prototype i suspect then it it almost protects against it doesn't sort of everyone will be good at the kind of different stages and it protects against not doing a part of it so some people might skip past the idea a bit because maybe they tell themselves they're not good creative thinkers and they just go straight into testing they're like oh we've got one idea that's enough whereas you and I'd be like one idea is never enough let's do 10 um whereas some maybe some people find the um testing a bit harder because perhaps like me previously you're like oh no but I'm quite attached to this now I don't really I don't really want to hear what people think I'm going to go straight into deciding this is the right thing to do and perhaps you skip that so I think just knowing and you know across your team I almost wonder whether yes you do need one person accountable for sort of overall leading the prototyping process I suspect you don't want too many cooks or that just gets confusing but knowing almost like who to draw upon in terms of people's skills and strengths like we've got somebody new who's just joined our team where I know she is she would she will be good at this bit um like she's naturally good at data and process and operationally also really strong and so I think and actually we've got somebody on maternity leave who's also good at this um so you know she on maternity leave at the moment but when she comes back um she she's good at this as well and I think when you know your teams and you know each other well you can sort of ask people to play a bit more of a part in those sections just to help you to kind of make sure that you've gone through it properly because actually you and I were struggling when we were over our prototyping breakfast as I'm now calling it um we were struggling to think of an example of where we'd seen a prototype through we actually couldn't quite we couldn't quite get to one because often we what did you describe as like loose ends or like loose threads yeah we're thinking yeah loose ends of projects and things I think we just kind of keep things going for a bit longer yeah it's just it's just distracting and then I think you can't you can't critique it enough I was also I had the same thought about could you have a phase owner almost like a relay so you have someone that owns the whole process but you might say like okay so we're kind of we're deciding now we're going to be into phase phase four and that kind of this phase owner is um and I always think that quite a bit of shared accountability in the team yeah nice so it's not just someone's pet project or favorite idea um and then you go back to you know the thing you said at the start about kind of how bought in our people to the idea that could also be like where where are we at in terms of buy-in has it changed um are you and i going to fight over being in charge of phase two i want to build the specification no i want to build it 10 out of 10 on the squidly crow development diary and sarah's like i'm a one out of 10 and we need some kind of adjudicator for the for the debates that will follow but it is interesting isn't it though because if you've got like i do think you could get to a stage of the prototype where you've had really good feedback and i think this would happen for sarah and me we could have really good feedback on an idea that we've got but actually we might have low buy-in because we might say well it is a good idea but it's just not the right thing for us to do like there's definitely you know you can't you have to if you're going to go beyond phase four and take something forward from prototype into something you're actually going to put into some form of production whatever production means and the concept of your idea you know your your buying and belief in it is just as important as people saying yes this is something we want because if they want it but you don't want to do it then it's not it's not worth doing I also think there is um if you're doing this properly having looked at that document and when we've been through this I think you want to be very intentional and make some really clear choices about where you prototype because if you prototype badly you get some of the things that we've described today and that almost feels like a waste of work and a waste of effort so you want to prototype well but to prototype well well certainly the conclusion that I've come to like exploring a bit more it does take a lot of it's a lot of effort you know it's going to take you know you've got to involve quite a lot of people you've got to go through all of these stages whereas you know we talked about you can do loads of like easy small experiments I think there probably aren't loads of things that you want to prototype because if you do too many I can imagine if we started to be like let's prototype a development diary an idea for a new book an idea for some tech we want to build you could choose to do we could start doing a lot more prototyping than we do but I am not sure we would want to because of the almost like the implied resource of what this looks like to do really well and so I think you really want to think about what are the projects or the things that we kind of care about and that feel valuable enough to make the investment in prototyping um and actually that that's what's really gone through my head as we've been thinking about it because actually we have taken experiments and embedded that into our company in a way that I think is really useful if we were going to now do the same for prototypes I think a danger or watch out for us would definitely be well I don't want to be prototyping loads of things I probably want to be prototyping one one thing at once maybe or any ever maybe one project and one process um just because then what this looks like I feel like I'll take that offline I won't cut us on the spot on the podcast but I think it is like what are your big bets you know what is significant to the team your future strategic perhaps I think those are the things that are worth post typing as soon as we finish recording this i'm going to give you i'm going to give you the thing and we'll we'll get exciting as long as i don't have to be in charge of all the different phases then that's fine i'll just do stage two oh yeah you're on the you're on the final phase you completely finished skill development oh imagine imagine she looks excited we will summarize the four phases as we've talked about them in the pod sheet so if you want that make sure you check out the show notes or go to the website amazingif.com also in the pod sheet we will link to the full Nesta 52-page document, which if you do want to dive a bit more deeply or get it from their perspective, I would recommend at least kind of flicking through that because there's more detail than we've shared in the podcast today.

42:54Helen:But that's everything for this week. Thank you for bearing with us from a very snowy New York. We know that you've not been able to watch it and we are sorry that this week we've not been able to make that happen. But hopefully the audio has still been worth it um and that's everything for this week we are going to go away and warm up and work out whether we can brave brave the snow again later today thank you so much for listening everyone it does look a bit like narnia bye everyone bye