Som-Inn Port’s prototype cells ended the prototype validation phase with the users, the recipients of their innovation proposals, on 21st May.
This phase has been developed through the Design Sprint methodology, which seeks to make tangible in an agile way, as well as mainly validate with the end user, the ideas and creative concepts that were generated during the phase of Design Thinking on the basis of the challenges initially defined.
The process of prototyping and validating the solutions in Som-Inn Port
In the case of Som-Inn Port, the Sprint methodology has been developed through 3 face-to-face workshops, in which the Innovation Agents:
– Decided how they wanted to perform the prototype (workshop 1)
– Finished off the prototypes and prepared the validation sessions with users (workshop 2)
– Carried out the validation sessions with the final users to obtain their feedback (workshop 3)
In this phase, the innovation agents were able to count on the participation of experts in prototyping, in the fields of web design, graphic design, or interior design and architecture, in order to support the tangibilization of specific ideas that each prototype cell wanted to develop.
During the third and last Sprint workshop, the prototype cells invited the users of the challenges (identified during the Design Thinking sessions), in order to receive their feeback. With this learning, the prototyping cells will pivot or improve the prototypes. Sprint is specially useful for learning, quick and inexpensive, looking not only at the prototype, but at the needs of the user; and this is what the Som-Inn Port prototype cells have done.
This process was carried out during a month of work, in which, in addition to the three face-to-face sessions, the participating innovation agents in each cell worked and virtually coordinated through the Som-Inn Port digital platform (it must be remembered that they belong to different organizations). This was in order to advance their prototypes and prepare validation with the final users.
The Sprint methodology: origin and objectives
The Sprint methodology was born out of 3 former Google Ventures partners, who needed to analyze the real potential of start-ups with which they worked. It is a methodology which helps to put entrepreneurs in the user’s skin, and focus on building a solution that the user considers useful. The key lies in making this process as quickly as possible, in order to minimize the cost of modifying the solution, as well as reducing the time necessary to carry out these modifications. No idea is simply implemented as it was born: all of them need to be modified.
This methodology has been used by hundreds of successful start-ups at the international level, and has helped entrepreneurs to swiftly pivot their solution. This is the case with solutions such as Slack, to cite a known example.
The objective of this phase and of the Sprint methodology is, in short, to contrast the hypotheses on which the prototype is developed on behalf of each cell, in order to:
– Anticipate problems
– Identify improvements
– And in short, swing the solution in a cheap and quick way before launching it onto the market.
Som-Inn Port: next steps
Once the first version of the prototype has been developed and the validation with users has been carried out, the 4 prototyping cells will incorporate the feedback received into their proposals and will present their prototypes, the results and the learning they have obtained from this process, at the next session of Som-Inn Port Agora.
The goal of Som-Inn Port is to promote innovative projects in processes, services and business models of the Port Community. With this objective in mind, Som-Inn Port will provide timely support for the start of the projects, which will be chosen for development, via members and collaborators of the Open Innovation Ecosystem, such as Accció, Tarragona Impulsa, Tarragona Smart Mediterranean Region, Eurecat, CDTI, or Puertos del Estado, to give some examples.
Once the prototyping and support phase of the innovation projects of this first pilot cycle of Som-Inn Port have been completed, the new cycle of innovation will be started, evolved through the learning of the pilot cycle, in which new innovation challenges that are of interest to the different members of the Ecosystem of Innovation of the Port of Tarragona will be worked on.
22nd May 2019
