First Rule of Prototyping and Best Advice on Innovation

Most engineers, scientists, and innovators will tell you that when you are prototyping, try to keep it as simple as possible to prevent failure. And yet, others might say that this advice does not always hold true. Not long ago, I was indeed having just such a conversation with an inventor type, who said to this topic; "however, the space shuttle works well and has millions of parts all made by different manufacturers...." And his statement was referring to the reality that there is nothing very simple about all the moving parts in the space shuttle.

In fact, there are about as many parts on the Space Shuttle as there are skews for products in your average Kmart Store. And also consider the costs. Yes, it's complicated no doubt, but look at their budget. Likewise the Shipping Industry works well, with very few crew members, lots of machinery. If you make it too complicated, they'll break it, you'll find Darwin Award Members thanks to Murphy. You see when prototyping this is my biggest fear, I just don't trust humans and I've been around industry enough to know that "crap happens" and over engineering is okay for some things, and a nightmare of weight and cost for others.

If you are inventing anything or have a new innovation or contraption which you'd like to test out, build a prototype, prove concept and one day build it to make yourself wealthy and help improve a process, an industry, or quality of life for all those who use it, then I'd recommend KISS - Keep It Simple Stupid methodology.

Yes, just considering these things is wise, looking at the options, not being afraid to ditch and idea, if you have a better one. Once you get going, with a project, project management theory suggests you stick to the time-lines, and project, unless you have a deal-killing dilemma and then you scrap it, right it all down, file the results of what you learned and as they say "back to the drawing board" and start a new project.

There is plenty of time later on for feature creep, mission creep, or changes to the original design, but to prove concept and not crash and burn too much, you really need to keep it as simple as possible from the get go. It will save you time, money, and hassle. Also you will send yourself back to the drawing board a lot less often. Please consider all this.