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. . . Boland and Fineout had been struggling for two full days to
remove some 5,500 square feet from the fl oor plan designed by
star architect Frank Gehry, while leaving room needed for meeting
spaces and offi ce equipment.
Summer, 2000 At the end of the marathon planning session, Boland had
breathed a sigh of relief. “It’s fi nally done,” he thought. But at that
very moment, Fineout rose from his chair, ripped the document
With a look bordering apart, and tossed the scraps into a trash bin, not bothering to
retain a single trace of the pair’s hard labor. He responded to
on panic, Weatherhead Professor Boland's shocked expression with a gentle shrug and a PROTOTYPING
soft remark. “We’ve shown we can do it; now we need to think
School of Management of how we want to do it.” 161

Looking back, Boland describes the incident as an extreme
161
Professor Richard example of the relentless approach to inquiry he experienced DESIGN
while working with the Gehry group on the new Weatherhead
Boland Jr. watched as building. During the design phase, Gehry and his team made hun-
dreds of models with different materials and of varying sizes, sim-
Matt Fineout, an ply to explore new directions. Boland explains that the goal of this
prototyping activity was far more than the mere testing or proving
architect with Gehry of ideas. It was a methodology for exploring different possibilities
until a truly good one emerged. He points out that prototyping, as
& Associates, casually practiced by the Gehry group, is a central part of an inquiry pro-
cess that helps participants gain a better sense of what is missing
tore up plans for a new in the initial understanding of a situation. This leads to completely
new possibilities, among which the right one can be identifi ed.
school building . . . For Professor Boland, the experience with Gehry & Associates
was transformative. He now understands how design techniques,
including prototyping, contribute to fi nding better solutions for
the entire spectrum of business problems. Together with fellow
professor Fred Collopy and other colleagues, Boland is now spear-
heading the concept of Manage by Designing: the integration of
design thinking, skills, and experiences into Weatherhead’s MBA
curriculum. Here, students use tools of design to sketch alterna-
tives, follow through on problem situations, transcend traditional
boundaries, and prototype ideas.

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