Pretotyping Project Coaching
The fastest way to go from pretotyping know-how to pretotyping WOW!
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Pretotyping is a skill and, like any skills, the only way to mastery is through practice. You master pretotyping by doing it. But learning-by-doing inevitably involves some unnecessary mistakes and missteps, which translate in a longer learning curve and/or questionable results. By pairing you up with a pretotyping expert, mistakes in planning and execution will be quickly identified and corrected and your team will master pretotyping skills faster and better. Please read the following FAQ for more details:
What are the benefits of PPC?
Although each PPC is focused on a specific project, the team gets very valuable pretotyping experience that they can apply to any future projects. As with all the Pretotype Labs offerings, our goals is to help you achieve self-sufficiency as soon as possible.
Below is a list of the major benefits from a PPC for both the specific project and the team or organization’s future projects.
Immediate project-specific benefits
- PPC will help ensure that the plan, execution, analysis and conclusions of the pretotyping effort for the project you’ve selected are done quickly, efficiently and correctly.
- Over the years, we have helped teams pretotype hundreds of ideas in many different markets and industries. With our direct help, experience and input you will move your project fast and in the right direction from the get-go.
Long-term and broader benefits for the organization
- PPC will significantly accelerate your organization’s transition from knowledge of pretotyping to practice and mastery of its principles, techniques and tools.
- Most of the plans, tools and analyses developed for a specific PPC project can be used by your organization as internal templates for future projects.
What kind of projects benefit the most from PPC?
A PPC offers the greatest benefits on the following types of project:
- High-Complexity: Projects that present particular (often industry specific) challenges and complexities that cannot be thoroughly covered in the course of a more general pretotyping workshop. For example, projects that have to deal with regulatory agencies and therefore may need to develop custom pretotyping techniques that are compatible with the industry’s practices and regulations. E.g., Medical devices and pharma companies that have to take into account FDA regulations.
- Urgent: Projects where timing is critical and you want to validate your idea and hypotheses as quickly as possible with pretotyping. We are big fans of learning by doing, and combining that with expert coaching, you get all the benefits of hands-on learning while minimizing “beginner” mistakes that may cost you valuable time and effort
- High-Cost: Some projects may involve investments of several months/years and many millions of dollars. For such projects it’s critical that the design and execution of pretotypes, and the analysis of pretotyping results/data, is performed as carefully as possible before committing to invest in them. Until an organization fully develops its in-house pretotyping expertise, a PPC will provide very valuable and objective resources to help validate the project hypotheses and premises.
What are the key steps and deliverables of a PPC?
All PPCs include the following:
- Initial project consultation: An initial meeting to help understand and define the project’s goals, scope, hypotheses and success metrics.
- Project Pretotyping Plan: A detailed step-by-step plan that translates the information from the initial consultation into a pretotyping plan that formalizes the hypotheses, identifies the most suitable pretotyping techniques to validate the hypotheses and the best metrics to objectively evaluate the results. Pretotype Labs will develop the first draft of the plan and will then work with the project team to refine it and finalize it.
- Ongoing execution coaching: Pretotype Labs will guide the team, revise, and fine-tune the pretotypes as they are put into actions and results begin to come in.
- Analysis and synthesis of results: The final set of data and results from the pretotyping tests is evaluated and discussed with the team.
- Final report and recommendations: Pretotype Labs will, in collaboration with the team, create a report that summarizes the entire project along with specific recommendations and conclusions based on the results of the tests.
- Turn-key Pretotyping Project: In addition to guiding the design, execution and analysis of pretotype experiments, Pretotype Labs will use its resources and expertise to develop the necessary artifacts (websites, MVP apps, mock-ups), run the experiments and analyze the results.
How long does a typical PPC engagement last?
It will depend on the nature, scale and magnitude of the project, but typically one or two order of magnitudes quicker than most other approaches or techniques. Some ideas for products and services can be thoroughly pretotyped and validated in a few days, some might take a bit longer to ensure that enough data is collected to validate the key hypotheses. You will be pleasantly surprised by how quickly we will take you from idea to implementation to results and data.
How much does a typical PPC cost?
Cost will also depend on the nature, scale and magnitude of the project. But, as with time, the cost will typically be a fraction of the cost of other approaches (e.g. focus groups, proofs-of-concepts.) We are confident that a PPC is the most time and cost efficient way to validate any idea before investing in it. A few days and a few thousand dollars are often sufficient to test and validate the ILI (Initial Level of Interest) and key hypotheses for multi-million dollar projects.=How is the coaching conducted?
On-site coaching is available. However, since teams are required to be already familiar with the core principles, techniques and tools of pretotyping by having previously attended a workshop in person, a PPC is typically performed remotely (via Skype, phone and email); this minimizes travel costs, overhead, and requires minimum coordination to get started.
Who conducts the coaching?
Alberto Savoia leads and direct all the coaching and will attend all projects calls and meetings. Depending on the scope and timing of the project, we might use additional internal or external resources for non-critical tasks (e.g. formatting final data and reports.)
What is the best timing for a PPC?
Some organizations choose to schedule a PPC right after a workshop. Others prefer to wait some time to make sure that they have a suitable project and also to discover what aspects of pretotyping practice they would like some help with after trying to pretotype on their own.
My team/organization would benefit greatly from a PPC, but we have not gone through a pretotyping workshop. Can we still get a PPC?
You can–if we precede the PPC with a full-day workshop. The workshop is a necessary requirement because it explains the principles, techniques, tools and language of pretotyping that are needed for an efficient PPC. If, for example, you are not familiar with the Facade pretotyping technique and the ILI (Initial Level of Interest) metric, we will have to stop and explain these terms and concepts. We believe that it’s most efficient and effective to be exposed to all the tools, techniques and metrics of pretotyping at one time. If timing is of the essence, we can start the PPC the very next day following the workshop–that’s actually a very good way to put the concepts into practice while they are fresh in your mind.
What about Intellectual Property and confidentiality?
PPC is only offered to organizations that are already clients of Pretotype Labs LLC and/or have attended a full-day workshop. So, in most cases, your organization will already have in a place a suitable Mutual Non-Disclosure Agreement with Pretotype Labs. If not, the PPC Agreement will include specific NDA provisions.
For more information and an free initial consultation on Pretotype Project Coaching please use our Contact page.
