MGMT 8815M Week 5 Prototype Critique Example

Memorandum

To: Managing Partner, Ashcombe Pryor CPAs

From: Operations Manager

Date: March 23, 2026

Re: Critique of the weekend sign-up board trial, Saturdays March 7 and March 14

The Hypothesis the Board Embodied

Ashcombe Pryor, a composite accounting firm of 54 staff in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, needs eight to ten people in the office on each Saturday from mid-February to April 15. For three seasons the firm has used an online calendar that shows each Saturday as a grid of open slots. By the first week of March this year, the calendar was filling at about half the rate needed, and partners were assigning shifts by email.

The trial tested one hypothesis: staff choose weekend shifts partly by who else will be working, so a schedule that shows names will fill faster than one that shows open slots. For two Saturdays, March 7 and March 14, the online calendar was hidden and replaced with a printed board on the wall beside the break room. The online calendar showed who had signed up only after a person clicked into a shift; the board showed every name at a glance.

The Prototype

Table 1

Layout of the Printed Sign-Up Board (Sketch)

The board was a 24 by 36 inch foam sheet with a marker on a string. The reviewing partner's name was printed in advance; staff wrote their own names on the lines.

What Happened

Both Saturdays filled. March 7 reached nine names within two working days of the board going up; March 14 reached ten. In the comparable week of the previous season, the online calendar took five working days to reach seven names for one Saturday, and two of those were assigned by a partner.

Who signed up, and in what order, was more telling than the totals. On both boards the first name to appear was a senior associate's, and within an hour two or three names from the same audit team followed beneath it. Afternoon shifts filled after mornings, except on March 14, when the reviewing partner was one whom several staff described as a good teacher; that afternoon filled first.

Staff comments, noted by the receptionist who sits near the board, pointed the same way. "If Dana's in, I'll do mornings" was the most typical form. One associate said she liked being able to see that a shift was not going to be empty. Two first-year staff said nothing at the board and did not sign up for either Saturday.

What the Situation Said Back

Schön (1983) described designing as a conversation with the situation, in which a move made to test one idea produces results that reshape the idea. The board talked back in a way the hypothesis did not anticipate. It confirmed that names matter, but it suggested that one name mattered most: the reviewing partner's. Staff were choosing not only whom they would sit beside but whose review they would learn from on a quiet day. That is a sharper and more useful hypothesis than the one the trial began with.

What the Trial Supports and What It Cannot

The trial supports a modest claim: for staff already comfortable volunteering, a visible schedule fills faster than a hidden one. It supports, more weakly, the claim that the reviewing partner's name affects which shift people choose.

It cannot show three things. First, it cannot show the effect on newcomers. The two first-year associates who did not sign up may have been deterred by a board that displayed established groups, which would make the design work well for regulars and badly for exactly the staff the firm most wants to develop. Second, it cannot separate the board's visibility from its novelty; two weekends of a new object in a busy hallway may draw attention any new object would draw. Third, it cannot show what happens in April, when Saturdays become harder to fill and the weekly pattern may change. Thomke (2003) argued that experiments are most valuable when they are designed to fail early and cheaply; this one was cheap, but it was not designed to fail for the staff it may serve worst.

Camburn et al. (2017) noted that a prototype can be built to answer a narrow question or to explore a broader one, and that the two call for different designs. The board was built for a narrow question and returned a broader one.

Does the Frame Survive?

The frame survives in revised form. Staff choose shifts partly by who else is working, and the reviewing partner's name carries the most weight. A second prototype should ask whether the board can welcome newcomers rather than display existing groups. One option is to print a first-year associate's name on each shift alongside the partner's, with that associate's agreement, and see whether other first-year staff then sign up. Another is to run the board and the online calendar side by side for one week and record which one new staff use. Either test would tell the firm whether the board widens the pool or simply makes the usual volunteers faster.

References

Camburn, B., Viswanathan, V., Linsey, J., Anderson, D., Jensen, D., Crawford, R., Otto, K., & Wood, K. (2017). Design prototyping methods: State of the art in strategies, techniques, and guidelines. Design Science, 3, Article e13. https://doi.org/10.1017/dsj.2017.10

Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.

Thomke, S. H. (2003). Experimentation matters: Unlocking the potential of new technologies for innovation. Harvard Business School Press.