Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Challenge Problem 5 New groups: –Group 1: Ayah, Hamsa, Mohammad –Group 2: Fatema, Marwa, Hejji –Group 3: Amel, Nahan, Firas Generate product concepts –Generate a list of at least 75 product/service concepts –Use the initial filtering ideas discussed to narrow to the 3 most promising product concepts for further investigation –Present those three top concepts to the class next Tuesday in no more than 10 minutes –Write up a concise report recommending which concepts to evaluate further, and why you make that recommendation –Include full list of product concepts as an appendix The list needs to have at least 75 product concepts to get an A on the challenge problem Presentation to the class on Monday, March 19 Paper report submitted by no later than 5:00pm on Tuesday, March 20

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Conceptualizing The Opportunity II: Prototyping 101 Robert Monroe Innovative Product Development March 14, 2012

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course By The End Of Class Today, You Should: Understand the role(s) of prototyping in the product conceptualization phase Be able to match different prototyping techniques to the different types of questions and problems that need to be addressed Have practiced putting together a prototyping strategy to explore and refine a proposed product solution

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Phase 3 Overview: Conceptualizing The Opportunity Phase 3 Product Concepts Gate 2 Gate 3 Phase 2 outputs: Prioritized value opportunities Detailed scenarios Prioritized product attributes Prioritized stakeholder list Phase 3 activities: Generating and screening product concepts Prototyping Paper and pencil Shape and form Technological Packaging decisions Detailed market research Phase 3 outputs: Single product concept with which to build detailed business case Prototype(s) that illustrate path forward for this product or service Detailed market analysis

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Phase III Process Overview VOA Refined POG Product Attributes Brainstorm lots of concepts Quick eval Select 3-10 most promising concepts Select one concept for Phase IV Detailed Eval: Define Test Refine, Repeat

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Prototyping In Phase III Prototyping begins in this phase –Simple visual and functional representations –“Skeletal” technology prototyping if and as necessary Focus is on evaluating: –Customer reactions - desirability and utility –Technical and production feasibility (and difficulty) –Fit in customer’s product and/or technology ecosystems –Identifying early ‘gotchas’ Tasks: –Create storyboards to illustrate and refine concepts –Sketch out pencil-and-paper concepts –Identify key technical challenges, figure out a way to convince yourselves that they can be addressed –Do necessary prototyping to understand key technical challenges

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course What is a Prototype? A prototype is an artifact (or set of artifacts) produced to evaluate or explore a design concept or challenge A prototype should not be: –Comprehensive –Indefinitely scoped –Release 1.0 of your product (or beta 1, for that matter)

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Why Build Prototypes? Primary reason: To answer questions Secondary reasons: –To explore the space of possible solutions –To identify unforseen problems and ‘gotchas’ –To sell your ideas to interested stakeholders

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Prototyping Examples: Physical Mockups

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Prototyping Examples: iPhone Apps

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Prototyping Example: Public Concepts The Apple Knowledge Navigator Concept Video

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Why Limit Your Prototyping? Prototyping is expensive (time, money, attention) Prototyping is a means to an end, not an end in itself Temptation to turn the protype into the real thing –This is remarkably hard to resist…

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course From Concept Ideas To Prototype Number of concepts under consideration Time Fidelity of concepts under consideration “Real” prototyping begins around this part of the graph Phase III End Phase III Begin

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course What Kinds of Questions? Does your concept hit the mark with target market? –Is it useful, usable, and desirable? Will the product or service solve the problem identified? Is it feasible to produce the product or service concept? –At all? –Within time and budget constraints? Will the proposed solution fit into the target tech ecosystem? –Is the assessment of the tech ecosystem on target? –Where are the hidden landmines? What else?

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Unknowns Drive Prototyping Strategy And Tactics General strategy: –Figure out what you don’t know but should –Prioritize issues and identify cascading implications –Will building a prototype help you get the answers you need? Is there a quicker, cheaper, or easier way to get the answers? Then do it. –Prototype sufficiently to learn what you need to proceed Specific tactics –Focus on the hard problems first –Prototype no more than necessary

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Solution Space Prototyping As Exploration Fun, enlightening, useful … but it’s easy to spend way too much time doing this Generally best done with pencil, paper, whiteboards

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Prototyping To Find ‘Gotchas’ Kaboom!

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Prototypes As A Sales Tool Selling a new product concept can be difficult –To your (target) customers –To stakeholders within your own company Prototyping can help sell to external stakeholders Prototyping can help sell to internal stakeholders

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Match Prototyping Tools and Techniques To Problem Pencil, paper, whiteboards –Great for experimenting with general concepts –Good for rapid iteration and feedback –Not very good for identifying subtle tech mismatches Photoshop and HTML –Powerful visual mock-ups –Less iterative than paper and pencil –More difficult and expensive than paper and pencil Storyboards –Walk through a sequence of actions and interactions to understand use cases in detail Rapid physical mock-ups –Foam blocks, wood, 3-D printers –Focus on form factor, ergonomics, aesthetics, fit Skeletal technical prototyping –Build selected elements ‘just enough’ to answer questions –Focus on technology fit

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Prototyping Exercise

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Product Opportunity Gap Over the past decade consumers have become more dependent on web-based retailers and mobile service providers. To prevent fraud, web retailers and mobile service providers need to authenticate that the customer making a purchase is who he or she claims to be. The standard way that web providers authenticate customers is requiring a userid and password to login. Consumers now need to manage many different passwords for many different websites, creating a hassle for consumers and a security problem for both consumers and web-based businesses.

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Identified Value Opportunities Legend Current: Desired:

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Identified Product Attributes Simplifies authentication process for consumers –Process of authenticating to a specific website or mobile service –Process of managing authentication information across sites and services Provides robust authentication – not easily spoofed Reduces security threats from consumer confusion, inattention, and inability to remember numerous passwords Simple to use with little or no training Difficult to use incorrectly Provides customers clear feedback that it is working Standard usage across most websites and mobile services Integrates with existing web and 3G technology infrastructure

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Early Conceptualization Example Provide a small keychain-sized device that stores userid and passwords for user-selected websites Device stores userid/password combos that it provides to the smartphone, tablet, or browser on the computer to which it is connected Device can connect to computer/phone/tablet using bluetooth or USB Userid/Passwords stored in an encrypted format on the device Fingerprint is required to decrypt device contents or send userid/password combo to website or service

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Mid-Fidelity Conceptualization Example user scenario: Mary uses three different online financial services – credit card, checking, and brokerage. She uses different password/id combos at each one to improve security but she has a hard time remembering them. When she sits down to pay her bills and reconcile her accounts each month she sets her key-chain id next to her computer and presses her thumb on the thumbprint pad. Her thumbpress turns the device on, which sends a bluetooth signal to her pc. The software on her pc recognizes the signal and alerts her browser to query the device whenever a login screen pops-up. The device provides the userid/password for each of her online financial sites After 15 minutes without a query from the pc, the device turns itself off Example flowchart: Fingerprint unlocks device Login screen recognized Userid/pwd sent to browser Banking application accepts userid/pwd, access granted

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Today’s Exercise – Develop A Prototyping Strategy What are the most important unknowns with this concept? Identify, prioritize, and order them Which of these unknowns should we investigate through prototyping? Why? –Which should we investigate with other techniques? Describe the prototyping strategy you recommend we employ to get each of these answer(s)? –Will one prototype address all of the issues identified? –If not, how many prototypes should we build? –What are the costs of doing so? Can they be amortized?

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course Challenge Problem #6 Building on the most promising product concept developed by your team in challenge problem #5: –Identify an important ‘unknown’ about this product concept –Develop a prototyping plan to answer that question, or explore potential answers –Create a prototype using any of the techniques described or any other prototyping techniques desired –Use this prototype to answer the question posed or to select a design alternative Present in class on Monday, March 26: –The ‘unknown’ that your prototype addresses –Discuss how you used prototyping to better understand that ‘unknown’ –Show and/or demonstrate the prototype that you’ve created –What you learned about the product concept through your prototyping exercise –Presentations should be no longer than 10 minutes, including discussions Challenge problem #6 is worth 100 points

Carnegie Mellon Qatar © Robert T. Monroe Course References [CE09] Robert G. Cooper and Scott Edgett, Successful Product Innovation, Product Development Institute, 2009, ISBN: [CV02] Jonathan Cagan and Craig M. Vogel, Creating Breakthrough Products, Prentice Hall, 2002, ISBN: [KL01] Tom Kelly with Jonathan Littman, The Art of Innovation, Doubleday, 2001 ISBN: [SSD09] David Silverstein, Philip Samuel, Neil DeCarlo, The Innovator’s Toolkit, John Wiley and Sons, 2009, ISBN: