The use of prototypes within agile product development explorative case study of a Makeathon

Abstract

Due to rapid technology change and increased innovation dynamic, product development is related with high uncertainty and complexity [2]. As a consequence of the shortened product life-cycles, agile development becomes more important. It fosters cross-functional project work and enables a team to react fast and flexible to a continuously changing environment. Central aspect of the agile approach within physical product development is prototyping. This work identifies criteria to analyze the use of physical prototypes within an agile set up. Therefore, a Makeathon has been analyzed. In contrast to plan-driven development, prototypes are used to explore, design, verify, test the usability or communicate product aspects. They support the learning process by providing important insights about the solution space on which the planning of the next iteration is based.The data also support the assumption that there is not "one" approach in agile product development. It is much more likely to be unique to each product, which is also one of the strengths of agile product development, as it allows you to react flexibly to changes.

Corporate makerspaces as innovation driver in companies: a literature review-based framework

“…Additionally, they also promote the space and its users through e.g. newsletters or by organizing large events like makerthons (Zink et al, 2017;Unterfrauner and Voigt, 2017;Martin, 2015). Thus, functional facilitators can be seen as the general management of the makerspace who manage and organize the space.…”

“…We suggest that the CMSs and thus the community infrastructure is open to all employees of the company to guarantee a mixture of talents, educational backgrounds and projects like in public makerspaces. Most important for the physical community infrastructure is the workspace with its five working zones which are defined as follows (Nkoudou, 2017;Jensen, Semb, Vindal and Steinert, 2016;Zink et al, 2017;Oliver, 2016b):…”

“…Additionally, the CMS can be used as space for makerthons fostering, e.g. collaboration between internal employees or employees with external stakeholders (Zink et al, 2017;Böhmer and Lindemann, 2018).…”

Unveiling the Multiple and Complex Faces of Fidelity

“…One of the most generic definitions of Fidelity is that provided by Virzi (1989), who took inspiration from the Turing test to define High-Fidelity prototypes (which cannot be easily distinguished from the final product) and Low-Fidelity prototypes (which can be rapidly distinguished from the final product). This definition, like similar ones adopted in other literature contributions (Hallgrimsson, 2012;Houde and Hill, 1997;Yang, 2004;Zink et al, 2017), considers Fidelity as a sort of measure of a not well specified "closeness" between the prototype and the final product. This quite generic definition has been successfully used in some research works but some scholars felt the need to provide more focused meanings.…”

Mastering Execution: Four Generations of THINK.MAKE.START. At a Corporation

“…At the beginning, very simple, quickly buildable models are sufficient, which then become more complex during development (Smith, 2007, p.101). Prototypes are a central aspect of the agile development of product innovations (Zink et al, 2017). Prototyping itself is the key activity of product development in the design process (Chua et al, 2010, pp.…”