Engineers build an early version on discretionary time and leftover budget, within what their managers allow, so the formal request for funding arrives with a working prototype attached.
Borderline: whether this move is justified depends on the situation, and only the person in it can judge.
An example
Two process engineers at a specialty chemicals plant believed a cheap optical sensor could catch off-spec batches an hour earlier than the lab tests did. Their project request had been turned down in the last capital cycle as unproven. The plant allowed engineers a few hours a week for improvement work, and the maintenance budget had a little left in it at year-end. They built a sensor rig from parts bought on that budget and ran it on one reactor for three months, logging their hours as improvement time. The rig flagged four off-spec batches before the lab did. At the next capital cycle they brought the request back with the rig, three months of data, and the cost of the four batches it would have saved. The plant manager approved a pilot on all six reactors.
Why it works
Funding requests for unproven ideas are judged on their risk, and the risk looks high when nothing exists yet. A working prototype built within the discretion the organization allows makes the proposal look better, because it exists and shows results, and it makes approval easier, because the deciders are funding something demonstrated in place of a guess. Underneath it are real discretionary time and resources, honest reporting of how they were used, and a manager who tolerates or encourages such work. It turns against the builders if the work hid spending or broke rules.
The thinking behind it
Peter Augsdorfer Augsdorfer's Forbidden Fruit: An Analysis of Bootlegging, Uncertainty, and Learning in Corporate R&D (1996) defines bootlegging as innovative work carried out without formal authorization, usually on the researchers' own initiative and with discretionary resources, and examines how it contributes to innovation and learning under uncertainty. The sensor rig fits that description, and the page's line, discretionary resources only and hours reported truthfully, keeps the work within what the plant allowed.
Chip Heath and Dan Heath The Heaths' Decisive: How to Make Better Choices in Life and Work (2013) recommends ooching, running small experiments to test an idea before committing to it. A bootleg prototype is an ooch run by the proposers themselves: three months on one reactor answered the question that had sunk the original request, whether the sensor worked, before the plant had to commit any capital.
When it fits
Companies that give engineers or analysts some discretionary time or budget are where it fits, for ideas that can be tested cheaply and proposals that keep failing because they are unproven. The builders need the skill to make a working version, a manager who allows experiments within limits, and the patience to build before asking.
How to use it well
Check the limits first: what discretionary time and money your role allows, and what your manager expects to hear about. Build within them.
- Use only time and resources you are allowed to use, and report them truthfully.
- Keep your manager informed at the level they expect.
- Test on real work and log the results.
- Bring the prototype and the data with the formal request.
Take nothing from other projects, and keep nothing from people entitled to know about the work. The prototype persuades because it shows the idea works, and that is lost the moment it turns out to rest on concealment.
What it costs and where it backfires
Bootlegging eats discretionary time and can annoy colleagues who think you are neglecting your main work. A prototype that fails is wasted effort, and one that succeeds can provoke resentment from the people who rejected the original request. The line is truthfulness and discretion. Once the work uses resources outside your authority, hides spending from those who decided, or reports time falsely, it has become concealment, and it can cost you your job.
When it is used on you
When a team brings a working prototype to a funding decision you expected to win, judge it on the data, and ask how it was built and what it cost. If the resources were within their discretion, the prototype is a fair argument. If they were not, raise how they were obtained with the manager responsible.