Purpose-driven prototyping
By: Thomas Siegrist
Tags: Prototyping, Design Thinking, Innovation

Purpose-driven prototyping

Good prototypes accelerate decisions

Understanding means touching

As a child, we all heard the following sentence a thousand times “Look with your eyes — not with your hands!” Children want to touch everything with their hands in order to understand it.

We adults are not much different — we also want to understand and it helps us if we can really touch the object, “touch” the situation or the product that is in the focus of a discussion. We are thrilled when we can hold a future product in our hands or click through software that does not yet exist.

After all, innovation means nothing more than imagining the future. We try to determine which product or service will be desirable in the future. Yet it is so difficult to develop a common understanding because the future is not tangible.

This is where prototyping helps:

Prototypes make the future tangible.

Prototypes — the monster with the 1000 names

Probably no other term in the field of innovation causes as much controversy and disappointment as prototypes. I try to avoid the term “prototype” wherever I can, because I’ve already experienced the following or a similar situation far too often:

Innovator to boss: “Look, I have built a prototype to make my idea more tangible. Look here, press here, experience there…great, right?”

Boss: “OK, interesting, but why does the prototype still have the wrong color or why does this error message appear and why is the size still not right and…”.

Innovator: “Well, it’s still a prototype! It’s not yet perfect!”

Boss: “Yes, but I would have expected from a prototype to be able to do all of this.”

And then the discussion starts on the adequate functions and limits of a prototype. No matter how the discussion ends, it will leave two disappointed people behind.

So why is that? The answer is simple:

There is no universal definition of prototype

(I will reveal my favorite definition of prototype below, but this too has no claim to universality).

If a user research talks about “a prototype”, he or she will think of a quickly assembled model made of cardboard and adhesive tape, which allows you to visualize first ideas and iteratively anticipate customer needs.

In contrast somebody from the automotive industry will immediately recite the definition “form, fit, function” (for a prototype the size, the connections to the surrounding system and the function must be given, otherwise it is not worthy of the title “prototype”). What a potential for disappointment if they work together in a project!

What is a prototype?

One way out of the dilemma is to think about the purpose of prototypes. No matter whether they are called prototype, functional model, mock-up, design pattern, breadboard, vertical slice, tactile pattern, proof of concept, proof of principle, MVP or whatever (no wonder we were talking about the “monster with 1000 names” earlier).

The purpose of prototypes is to answer questions.

Somewhere in the innovation process we will always encounter questions, and often a prototype (or more generally an “unfinished system “) helps us to answer that question.

Instead of getting involved in hours of discussions on which of the 1000 we should choose, I’ve started to ask: “Which question do we want to answer with the prototype?” And suddenly a very constructive, solution-oriented discussion takes place. All of a sudden we have to agree as a team, whether we want to answer questions about customer needs (in which case a cardboard prototype will probably suffice) or about technical functions or performance or, or, or, or…

My favorite definition of prototype is

“The unifying decision making tool”

At first glance, this sounds very abstract, but it sums things up: We repeatedly reach a point in the innovation process that requires a decision. Deciding means to answer a question.

So, we first agree on a question, then we agree on what prototype and what test will help us to answer the question, then we build and test the prototype, and then we decide and move forward in unity.

This is one of the great advantages of well made prototypes:

Prototypes accelerate decisions.

Prototypes look different depending on the question

If prototypes are tools to answer questions, it is in the nature of things that there are as many different prototypes as there are different questions.

Let me just briefly point out an example: Along the innovation process we have to answer the three basic questions:

Does the innovation meet a customer need? (Desirability)

Is it technically feasible? (Feasibility)

Is it economically sustainable? (Viability)

A prototype that tests the desirability will replicate the product only as far as necessary to lead the user into the decision situation where he or she can decide whether the product is attractive for him or her. (This could be a fake website, a flyer, of a product that does not yet exist, a play that puts the customer in a certain situation etc).

A prototype that tests the feasibility will reproduce the technical function that we consider most critical. There is no user interface or other clutter, just this one technical function.

Last but not least a prototype that tests the viability will summarize the key financial data in a business case. It will allow us to make a statement about the economic attractiveness, first roughly and then more and more sophisticated.

In summary, each phase of innovation and each discipline has its own type of prototype.

Prototypes can be created anytime and anywhere

Among other things, innovation thrives on speed and on making fast and good decisions. If you want to make fast and good decisions, get into the habit of regularly building prototypes.

I recommend the following procedure: First, define the core question (because we saw above: “Prototypes answer questions”). Then give yourself or your team a time budget (e.g. 2 days or 2 weeks or 2 months or 2 minutes) and then ask:

“Which prototype can we build in 2 days that will help us to get ahead on this question?”

Don’t make the mistake of asking “Can we build a prototype and what does it look like?”. If you do, you run the risk of falling into the perfectionist trap. A prototype can always be over-perfected. Yet the goal of a prototype is to take the best possible decisions as quickly as possible.

If you stick to a limited budget, you will notice how you and your team will gain practice in sharpening questions and building result-oriented prototypes.

Attention: Do not fall in love with your prototype!

There is a lot of heart and soul in a prototype. The idea matures while building the prototype and with it the team’s identification. But beware: don’t fall in love with your prototype! The goal of the prototype is to bring about decisions and the decision can be “This is a bad idea!” If you are in love with the prototype, you will try to defend the idea instead of accepting the result of the test.

3 secrets for successful prototyping

The following 3 tips will help you to build successful prototypes.

1. clarify the question

What is the central question in the project that I have to clarify?

What characteristics must my prototype have to answer this question and what can I leave away? (Prototypes live from focus and simplification)

2. limit the budget

Give yourself and your team a reasonable but clearly limited time and money budget. This keeps you focused and promotes creativity, how to quickly come up with good answers.

3. let your prototypes die with dignity

Build and test the prototype, take the decision and then let your prototype depart with dignity. This helps you not to fall in love with prototypes or make them too perfectionistic.

Purpose-driven prototyping — what it is all about

Prototypes have a “purpose”: They help answer questions by making the future tangible and speeding up decisions. So: define the question, build an appropriate prototype, test it, decide and move on. The prototype has made the future tangible for a short time, but now it’s time to move on.