An infinite number of inventions is waiting to happen. It’s often hard to figure out why one idea succeeds and another falls by the wayside. Many factors can impact success, ranging from the quality of the product, to the way it’s marketed, to the timing of its release. Sometimes, it’s just pure luck. Often, great ideas fail because the inventor spends too much time trying to develop the perfect 1.0 version instead of simply producing something. But the person who gets the idea out first, even if it’s in a rudimentary form, stands to benefit the most.
Various studies indicate that engineers across disciplines share one thing in common— overconfidence when estimating time required to complete projects. Studies consistently show that more than 50% of projects are delivered at least three months late, over budget, and with a reduced feature set. When converting an idea into reality, time is the innovator’s most precious resource.
Creating a successful project means setting a hard goal for time and budget, while still allowing for features and goals to be scaled accordingly. By scaling back the scope of a project, designers are effectively creating a prototype of the final design. This prototype is vital to make the most of the time and budget afforded to the project by enabling real-world tests for both customers and investors.
Take the story of two inventors— Gottlieb Daimler and Edouard Delamare-Debouteville. Both had visions of creating engines that would form the basis of automobiles for decades to come, yet each took very different approaches. Daimler invented a functional prototype of the modern gasoline engine, placing it into a two-wheeled vehicle called the “Reitwagen.” After testing this design, Daimler invented the first four-wheeled automobile, and that design reached production.
In contrast, Delamare- Debouteville created a very sophisticated four-stroke engine that was much more advanced than the designs of Daimler. However, the design only existed on paper and did not result in a successful physical implementation. In this case, the difference between becoming the cornerstone of one of the largest automotive empires or a historical footnote was as simple as creating a prototype.
WHY PROTOTYPE?
In today’s Internet-connected world, ideas are cheaply shared around the globe almost instantaneously. With simultaneous access to the same wealth of information, people can have a similar idea at the same time and tell a lot of other people about it very quickly.
The idea itself is inexpensive. What’s expensive is proving that it has value in the market. Developing a compelling prototype is the easiest way to connect with potential customers and investors. With prototypes of software and hardware designs showing up daily on YouTube and other social networking sites, consumers can provide valuable feedback that allows innovators to gauge interest in their inventions. The prototype enables innovators to reduce the risk and cost associated with developing these ideas.
All too often, innovators start by designing their inventions to reach large volumes of consumers. Unfortunately, many innovations fail early because engineers must deal with reducing cost before verifying that there’s a large enough audience to warrant such an investment. Ideas can be stifled by over-focusing on detailed cost optimization analysis too early. Cost is always important, but your goal with a prototype is to be within striking distance of a profitable design.
Initially, focus on proving the value of your innovation and design with modularity in mind. While frustrating, your design may follow many paths that do not ultimately lead to value. The first goal should be securing your first set of customers. Then, work on cost optimization (Fig. 1).
REDUCE DEVELOPMENT COSTS AND RISK
Prototyping lowers the cost of development by stripping down the end product into a set of features and requirements that represent the final design. The goal is to provide a proof of concept that demonstrates functionality to be vetted out by customers, clients, and even the design team itself.
For example, a prototype of a next-generation video player using new low-power decompression algorithms can focus solely on proving the benefits of the algorithms in question, rather than the design of the final plastic casing. This early proof of concept can allow the engineering team to prove the validity of its software and hardware algorithms.
Two goals should drive which features to implement in a prototype: testing feasibility and generating customer feedback. Keep these objectives in mind and be careful not to fall in love with the process. Prototyping is fun and innovators love to tinker, but the goal is to invest just enough time and work to meet the objectives.
Showing these early phase prototypes permits investors and customers to provide vital feedback early in the process. With such a feedback loop, the prototype can evolve over time and get closer to the original design goals, and those design goals can even be refined to more closely meet the customer’s needs.
By prototyping a design, the engineering team reduces the time from creation until it’s first visible by potential clients. This reduced time is the key to responding to feedback as projects are most nimble in the early phase of development. As a project moves forward and continues to add functionality and features, changes to projects later in the life cycle become exponentially more difficult and expensive to change. By creating a lean prototype early on, engineering teams save time and money.
Having a prototype allows the engineering team to vet out designs and weigh design tradeoffs. It’s easy to debate ideas when they aren’t tangible. The earlier you have something working, the better. Then everyone can poke, prod, and get on the same page of design.
The physical realization of an idea helps unite a team of developers, and having something functional early is a big motivation builder. With small, quickly developed milestones, progress can be readily seen and leveraged to extend funding and increase development resources. Assembling a multi-year project without demonstrable milestones makes it challenging to align all of the potential stakeholders.
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