When Prototyping Meets Storytelling: Practices and Malpractices in Innovating Software Firms

Prototyping can be used to investigate customer needs, validate and clarify customer requirements and tasks, and thus support a company in designing a solution to address customer problems.

“Prototyping can be used to investigate customer needs, validate and clarify customer requirements and tasks (Budde and Zullighoven 1990;Ciriello et al. 2017), and thus support a company in designing a solution to address customer problems.”

Breadboard prototypes are used to investigate technical aspects and to support system specification and coding.

“Similarly, breadboard prototypes are used to investigate technical aspects, e.g. in circuit design, and to support system specification and coding (Budde and Zullighoven 1990;Ciriello et al. 2017;Lichter et al. 1994;Lim et al. 2008).”

One of the main purposes of prototyping is to validate requirements by testing a solution option with internal and/or external stakeholders for perspectives such as problem-solution fit, product-market fit, technical feasibility, and usability.

“One of the main purposes of prototyping is to validate requirements by testing a solution option with internal and/or external stakeholders (Ciriello et al. 2017;Tronvoll et al. 2017) for perspectives, such as problem-solution fit, product-market fit, technical feasibility, and usability.”

Prototypes can support requirements elicitation by clarifying problems early on.

“Ciriello et al. note that prototypes can support requirements elicitation by clarifying problems early on (Ciriello et al. 2017).”

The use of a live product version as a prototype poses conflicts between the need for quick feedback and a focus on product quality.

“However, the use of a live product version as a prototype poses conflicts between the need for quick feedback and a focus on product quality (Ciriello et al. 2017).”

The insights gained from such prototyping can be used to support business-related decision making.

“The insights gained from such prototyping can be used to support business-related decision making (Ciriello et al. 2017).”

Visions and ideas about a product can be communicated through prototyping, which provides a common language between developers and stakeholders and acts as an anchor for group communication.

“Visions and ideas about a product can be communicated through prototyping, which provides a common language between developers and stakeholders (Budde and Zullighoven 1990;Ciriello et al. 2017;Rahman et al. 2017;Zink et al. 2017) and acts as an anchor for group communication (Dow et al. 2011).”

Moving too quickly to production source code comes with a risk of having to cancel the project later on.

“While there may be stakeholders, e.g.sponsors, that are eager to quickly move on to realising and delivering a novel idea, moving too quickly to production source code comes with a risk of having to cancel the project later on (Ciriello et al. 2017).”

The interactions around prototypes relate to the cognitive abilities and communication skills of those involved and is a complex and interesting area for further research.

“The interactions around prototypes relate to the cognitive abilities (Cafer and Misra 2009) and communication skills (Ciriello et al. 2017) of those involved and is a complex and interesting area for further research.”