Making it real

The point in prototyping is to test:
- How the product or service works
- How other people use it
- How it looks and feels

When prototyping it is key to remember that it should be done ugly, early and often!

There are a number of areas where prototyping is really effective and can add real value including:
- Citizen Experiences
- Software
- Physical products
- Processes
- Spaces

The main stages of our process are:
- Understand what you want to learn from your prototype
- Develop your testing plan
- Create the prototype
- Run your prototype
- Iterate

Our Prototype Process Guide provides more detail (see Resources).

You need to be able to clearly articulate the concept that has been prototyped to demonstrate its viability. To help with this you should create a pitch that can be used to communicate what it is that you have developed.

Make sure that you have the right people and skills available - the team that got you to this stage might not have the skillset required to take the concept forward to implementation.

Create a roadmap defining your to do list making it clear what you will actually do. Create this with your team - they will have the knowledge of what is required. Think about the key steps that needs to happen and map these against a timeline.

Start to break down, thinking about what needs to happen in the next month or year, and so on.

Work out how you are going to measure the success. Understand the reasons why you are measuring success (for example, demonstrating impact, funding requirements, and so on).

Reach out with your team to understand if the service area has Key Performance Indicators in place that could be used… also they will be the experts so use their knowledge.

Start measuring… but remember you can always tweak your measurements once live.

The prototypes themselves that you create aren’t valuable — at all — but your learnings are.

At the end of each project you should undertake a ‘lessons learned’ with all those involved in the project.

It is important that each lesson, no matter how big or small, is recorded and stored somewhere that can be accessed easily by other member of your organisation.

You may find that not everyone is open and as honest as you would like (is their boss in the room, do they think they will offend you?)

There are simple ways to get around this. Perhaps you could ask for feedback anonymously, survey online and so on. Providing key themes and headings can help people provide valuable feedback.

Although these may not get used again by this project, the lessons learned as part of your project may be invaluable to someone else’s project.

Be honest when communicating to stakeholders as it will help buy in for future projects.

Storytelling is key to feeding back.

• Guide to our Prototype Process