Pretotyping@Work: Invent like a Startup, Invest like a Grownup

by Jeremy Clark

Breakthrough innovation management vexes all companies. Finding and commercializing breakthroughs is vitally necessary for growth and profit, yet it's notoriously hard to pick winners. Two sides Inventors, whose creativity is so often stifled by inflexible innovation processes, and Investors, whose desire not to waste precious time and money leads them to reject all but the most incremental 'sure thing' ideas. Pretotyping@Work offers a new method for exploring breakthroughs, that strips away wasteful opinion and speculation, and replaces it with a disciplined approach to testing actual market demand while investing a fraction of the full development costs. Marketplace failure is almost never the result of poor execution, but of a well-executed but false premise. Pretotyping is about making sure you're building the right "it", before you build "it" right. With this resource-frugal toolkit, Inventors get to try many more ideas, even - especially! - the crazy-sounding ones that occasionally disrupt industries. With a clear path to data, Investors get rapidly to a level of confidence as to whether this is the right "it" or not. Pretotyping@Work develops a theory and method of pretotyping illustrated with varied examples and graphics, and provides practical tools for readers to apply immediately to breakthrough innovations of all product, service and internal change.

65 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 20, 2012