Tiny Furniture Models and Small Experiments in a Work Team

I flipped through the New York Times Style magazine. Yes, I admit it. 

I’m not in the market for a five-figure-class-warfare-inspiring watch or necklace. I flip through for the cool architecture and furniture. And the weird high-fashion clothing. I like to read the thoughts of a brilliant but unsung painter over 80. And the ambitions of a bright new ingenue sculptor or soap-maker. People making things. I like the saturated photographs that create drama with consumer products. Elaborately packaged skin care products arranged in an actual gutter? Hilarious. 

This issue of Style had the perfect article for me. It was about furniture designers making small-scale models of chairs. Quite small, like 6 or 7 inches tall. Maquettes, they are called. 

The story was about the creative process. These tiny models help designers test out their ideas, without the expense and equipment required to make a full-scale mock-up. In a small model, you can play with proportion, materials, and the general look. You can make a bunch of them in a day. No saws or big molds or large sizes of expensive materials going to waste.

These stylish tiny chairs are a good metaphor for one of my favorite recommendations to leaders and their teams. 

When a team is trying to solve a problem or create something new, or when a leader wants team members to do something new in their daily work, I give them this question to work with: How can we take this idea (or this new part of our work) and try it as a small experiment?

When a team is working on a process that will be repeated as a regular part of their work, a small experiment has four parts: 

• The hypothesis, or the specific question they are trying to answer (a more detailed, measurable version of “Will this idea work better than what we have now?” or “Is this a good part of this new thing we are creating?”)

• The plan to carry out the test, usually in one day or one week, or for one customer or client. 

• The group review of how the test went. 

• The decision on what to do next, based on what worked well, or didn’t, in the experiment.

This is detailed work. It’s how work, the work of process redesign. Who does what thing, when? Which ideas give us the results we want? 

Small experiments are not original to me. Far from it. The four–part approach above comes from the Plan-Do-Study-Act Cycle (or Plan-Do-Check-Act to some) of the Model for Improvement, that I coached for years in my process redesign work in health care. 

Aside from the formal process improvement steps, we do this automatically as individuals, in our own heads. We experiment to find out the best way to get from Point A to Point B, if we have a new job to go to or a new favorite park to visit.  We experiment with the best time to wake the kids so they are not late getting out of the house. What we don’t do naturally, most of us, is to do this experimentation as a group, in a team. It takes planning and communication. 

A small experiment gives people permission to try something different on one day (or in one week, or with one patient in health care) from the way they have always done it. Everybody reading this with experience in human-centered design is already saying, “This is prototyping. The tiny chairs are prototypes.” Yes, you are all correct. Human-centered design (also called design thinking, or simply “innovation”) is another approach, with lots of tools and processes, to experimenting small. Designers use paper to prototype screens of a new smartphone app. They use modeling clay to mold a new kitchen gadget. The idea with prototyping is to come up with something you can use, quick and cheap, so you can test it out in the real world. Get it off of paper and beyond planning and talking. Try the prototype, and then design the actual thing that people will use. It will be better, because of what you learned from the prototype.

If you want to know more about prototyping and design thinking, search “IDEO U prototyping videos” (without quotation marks) to learn from experts at the world famous design firm IDEO.

If you want to know more about small experiments for a team workflow, search “PDSA cycle IHI video” (without the quotation marks) and you will find a video from expert Robert Lloyd, and another from the medical journal BMJ. They are both good. Or ask me. I can teach PDSA-type small experiments at the drop of a hat.

Small experiments put ideas into small, safe action. The experiment provides a container, the proverbial sandbox. 

Small experiments help you focus on ideas and what works, instead of who speaks the loudest or has the most power. 

Small experiments allow teams to take risks safely. They encourage ideas, and discourage endless debate. They allow you to skip the argument about whose idea is better: “Let’s test your idea, then try my idea, and see what happens.” 

In conclusion: Small experiments! Prototypes! Tiny chairs!