Motivation
Novice teams like emerging start-ups tend to form around a product idea and need to efficiently transform it into a proof of concept with limited resources. This early-stage product development processes (fuzzy front-end of innovation) can be quite confusing and new for novice teams that usually consist of a variety of different disciplines. For the teams it is risky to develop a full product before testing a concept in the market. For this reason, they need to conduct experiments in the early product development stages to reveal (i) desirability, (ii) feasibility and (iii) viability of the original idea which can be achieved through the concept of prototyping. However, so far no guidelines exist that support the decision-making during the prototyping process.
Goal
To develop a framework that guides the use of prototypes in product development novice teams during the fuzzy front-end consisting of (Ingredients/How): (1) Project Datalogging Software (Tool), (2) Agile Project Management Approach (Cycle View), (3) Process for Prototyping (Phase View), (4) Metric to measure Success and (5) useful methods at any given stage of the prototyping process.
Approach
Type III research based on Design Research Methodology (DRM). The following research question are addressed:
RQ1.0: What are current best practices or tools in the fuzzy front-end product development for novice teams?
RQ2.0: How to measure process success of novice teams in the fuzzy front-end product development process?
RQ3.0: How to improve the process success of novice teams in fuzzy front-end product development scenarios?