Smart Service Prototyping

Abstract

This chapter is dedicated to prototyping, one of the steps of the Smart Service Engineering Cycle. It includes three phases: realizing core functionalities, developing core functionalities, and testing functionalities with customers. In order to realize prototypes successfully, methodical aspects of rapid IoT prototyping are used.

First of all, this chapter explains the motivation behind rapid prototyping and provides an introduction to the approach. The concept of rapid IoT prototyping is based on the idea of developing short-cycle solution variants on the basis of benefit hypotheses or benefit promises and user stories focusing on them. The aim is to achieve data acquisition, aggregation, linkage, processing, and finally visualization by developing it in a vertically integrated manner. Once this is accomplished, the prototype can be evaluated with customers, which also makes it possible to put the benefit hypotheses to the test. Finally, the collected customer feedback can be incorporated more quickly into the development process of new prototype versions, leading to a continuous improvement of the user experience as well as a constant focus on prioritizing the user. Another component of rapid IoT prototyping is working and thinking in terms of minimum viable products (MVP), i.e., solutions that do not meet all of the defined requirements in the first iteration, but are nevertheless already functional.