In Chapter 6 the authors (Corporate Innovation: Disruptive Thinking in Organizations) examine an important aspect of new product design: prototyping.

1. What is prototyping?

2. What is the purpose of prototyping?

Define and explain the following terms (include examples of each):

3. Conceptual Prototype

4. Working Prototype

5. Presentation Prototype

Answer:

For a product to successfully penetrate within the market, it is important to perform mock releases of the same to the market to evaluate user reception and address quality issues before large scale production and release. This is referred as prototyping and serves to improve the quality of the product before actual release. A conceptual prototype is used to validate viability of an idea into a product, a working prototype is a pretty refined model that is used to asses functionality of the product while a presentation prototype is used to showcase the design or functionality of the product after product fixes have been made pending release.

Step-by-step explanation

Prototyping:

Prototyping refers to the partial release of a product (mostly software) to a small cohort of users who asses its efficiency and quality hence developmental evolution and product fixes are carried out prior to actual larger release. It is a mock release of a product to a small segment of the potential market.

Prototyping is carried out to ensure technical and functional/ operational problems that may exist within a product (that the development team had not noticed) are addressed to better the product. User problems within the product are identified by releasing it to a small group of users who interact with the product noting critical flaws and improvements that they would want the product to feature. Feedback from this group is employed to fix the flaws resulting to a better product which is released to the larger market. This ensures quality improvement and favorable reception in the market.

Conceptual prototype:

This is a model that features only key intended features of the final product without much refinement to justify their viability in creation of the product with enough development. It is a feasibility or rather mock-up model.

Example: A scale model of a building or bridge, Alpha grade version of a software.

Working Prototype:

This is a functional model of a product that has a majority of operational aspects of the product refined allowing engagement with users to identify flaws that may still exist.

Example: Beta grade version of a software.

Presentation prototype:

A presentation prototype refers to a representation of the final product that the development team uses to pitch to stakeholders particularly regarding the model and functional capabilities of a finished product. This specific type could be a functional prototype to show working of the finished product or a display prototype to showcase aesthetics of finished product.

Example: A miniaturized 3-d print out of a robot, Simulation software.

References:

Singaram, M., &Jain, P., (2018, January 13), What is the difference between proof of concept and prototype?, Retrieved from: https://www.entrepreneur.com/article/307454

https://www.techopedia.com/definition/13136/prototyping