This phase involves prototyping and testing of service components at high levels of fidelity in terms of both functionality and user experience so as to refine or enhance the solution.
I WANT TO REFINE THE SOLUTION…
The goal of the Refine stage is to prototype and test the proposition or propositions that have emerged from the Ideate stage with users and other key stakeholders as well as test its viability through a robust business analysis.
At the end of this phase there should be a detailed design that has been prototyped and tested with users and operations teams for usability and attractiveness of the service experience; has a viable business case and is technically feasible; and, is ready for deployment, in part or in its entirety in an internal or external pilot.
The concept will be rapidly prototyped and tested against the design objectives, first internally and then with potential customers and operational teams. It will be refined until an initial viable proposition emerges and a detailed end-to-end solution can be developed and documented in the form of a product and/or service blueprint. This is then further refined through subsequent rounds of prototyping and testing and then piloted to ensure it is commercial and operationally viable, technically feasible and is desirable. This process involves cross-functional teams from across the organisation, from the front line to the back office and support teams, and most importantly - potential customers and users.
The contents of this resource do not extend to cover the practice engineering a product.
WHEN TO Begin this stage
You should move into the Refine stage when
There is a developed and detailed product or service proposition and prototype that aligns with the brief and demonstrates value to the organisation and users.
There should be an understanding of the system implications, potential resource requirements and these should also be consistent with the constraints identified in the brief.
The proposition should have been validated by the internal and external teams as well as agreed by the project partners and all stakeholders should have committed to the removal of any barriers.
What are the OUTCOMES
Prototype and test the proposition with users and other key stakeholders
Test the readiness for deployment and delivery as a pilot
Develop a business model
Assure business viability and technical feasibility
CASE STUDY
I WANT TO REFINE THE SOLUTION…
By choosing what to test
Introduction
Refining a product or service with the intent to implement it, is about balancing risk. Each step you take forward risks failure, but develops learning and improves the concept (or avoids further investment in a failed concept). The size of each step is dependent on the amount of risk you can take. So the general logic of refinement is that you first take steps that you can do quickly and cheaply in order to assuage the most critical questions or assumptions that are implicit within the concept without investing too much or risking too much public failure.
Use the critical assumptions tool to find out what to test first and the experiment map to consider how to test them.
I WANT TO REFINE THE SOLUTION…
By building and refining prototypes
Introduction
At this point you should engage with a variety of prototyping activities in a cycle of building things, measuring their success and learning from them in order to gradually refine your concept until it is ready to be tested in the simplest version possible that can exposed to an uncontrolled environment (This simplest version - is called a ‘Minimum Viable Product’ or MVP).
Develop from prototype to MVP
This gradual development represents many shifts in approach: for instance your concept moves from being loose ideas to being highly specified; you move from learning from and embracing failure, to managing and avoiding it; shifting from small tests on individual components, to testing integrated end-to-end product/service experiences; you start with low visibility and risk and move toward having control but still have risk to your reputation and finally, while you begin by being as open and collaborative as possible, by the time you are testing an MVP, you are only working with the extended team of partners.
Prototype in different ways, internally and externally
While we include here some additional tools for prototyping the early stages of this process, you can continue to use the same prototyping techniques offered in the ideation stage only now with higher fidelity and specificity (for instance moving from role play to high fidelity simulations). The task of prototyping your product or service will be completely unique to your concept but they will all require a collaborative approach to engage the right stakeholders within the system and the correct users so that you can explore the complexity of a system and discover unknown unknowns.
Your prototypes should eventually test the physical touchpoints at scale to examine their sensory, cognitive or functional performance. They should test the experiences users and providers have as they interact with the proposal and they should test the procedural elements of the proposition, examining the feasibility and implications of incorporating your product or service into existing systems at the back and front-end. As you test the concept you refine, adapt and improve it until it is ready to be piloted as an MVP or alternatively you may uncover issues that mean it can’t work. This is a common outcome but should be avoided by challenging the concepts and adapting as early as possible.
Build your business model
During the process of developing your ideas you have been examining how your concept can bring value to different people as they interact with it. It is essential that at this point you do not neglect to continue to evolve how that value can sustain a business by prototyping how your business model will operate around the concept. This is not an activity solely to be considered at the end because if there is no viable business model then all your prototyping investment would be wasted. However, you should simply see this as a practical step, an innovative business model can sometimes be as impactful to the overall outcome of your project as the engineering concept itself. So continue to evolve how this will work during your prototyping activities and return to the system map (to examine value/money flows) or jump ahead to the business model canvas
I WANT TO REFINE THE SOLUTION…
By revisiting the bigger picture
Introduction
By this point in the process you should have a product or service concept that has been successfully developed to the point that it can be piloted. Use the Value Proposition Canvas tool to help you look critically at the proposition and ensure it is an appropriate fit with the market.
Now, and throughout the design process it is important to return to your tools and reassess whether changes or evolutions in the proposal have influenced the impact you may have (positive or negative), whether your overall theory of change is still appropriate, what risks there may be and whether there is still a viable business model. It is also critical to ensure you are still within scope and brief or that any deviation is agreed by project partners. Try revisiting the Systems Map, Theory of Change, HMW, PESTLE and any other tools of relevance to you.
Agree on Key Performance criteriaIn addition to revisiting the tools described above, it is imperative that before moving into the Implement stage, you revisit the Success Definition Tool to establish with your project partners how success and performance will be determined in any upcoming pilots.
I WANT TO REFINE THE SOLUTION…
By detailing how it might work
Introduction
A critical tool in detailing how your proposition will work is the Blueprint tool. Blueprinting details how a product, service or experience is integrated with different stakeholders and systems because it breaks down the flow into intricate horizontal stages and carefully maps interactions with different front-stage and back-stage elements. So, even if your proposition is a physical product, it may still need to integrate on a complex level with other systems and actors and if that is the case, a blueprint can help you map, refine, detail, adapt, and share your proposition.
