Prototypes are an excellent means for testing ideas. Not only do they allow you, your colleagues, customers and others to see how an idea would actually look in implementation, but building and playing with a prototype is a good method of further improving upon the core idea. Prototypes are, of course, ideally suited towards material ideas such as new products. But more abstract ideas, such as new services, process improvements and other concepts can often be prototyped through role-play, building structural models and making diagrams.

So here are our methodology for innovation :

• Adopt a disciplined method for innovation management including project management, focus on customer needs and alignment of research and development to marketing plans.
• Use advisers and collaborators (eg joint venturers, licensors and colleagues in your networks) to obtain resources which are non-core, vital or of superior quality to resources available in-house.
• Identify customer needs in market segments.
• Identify the differentiation of your innovative offering (goods, services, systems or a combination of them) to meet those customer needs.
• Develop the offering for the identified differentiation.
• Secure intellectual property protection. This includes:
  • obtaining signature of agreements; and
  • obtaining appropriate registrations of any patent, trade mark, design, domain name or other registrable property to ensure protection of the differentiation and gain exclusive or superior rights ownership or control.
• Use the differentiation as a component of the competitive advantage of the offering for market or financial goals, eg creating brand awareness, building market share, and obtaining premium pricing.
• Refine the positioning of the offering at either the offerings, operations or organisational structure level. This is a complex concept. Briefly, each level involves a bigger impact and generally higher levels of intellectual property or intellectual capital monopoly. The level you target to reach may seal the fate of the offering in terms of determining if:
  • it merely serves a current market, or
  • does better by extending the to a new market, or
  • does best by creating a market.
• Monitor, anticipate and respond to competition against or relevant to the offering.
• Monitor and respond to the market performance and feedback for the offering.