Successful organizations continually adapt and evolve to changing market conditions and technologies. The driving forces for innovation have been new technology, competitive pressures, and changing customer needs. When changes in the market place occur at a rapid pace, it becomes critical to accelerate the innovation process.

Rapid Innovation and Prototype Development
The period between the earliest point in the design cycle and the final release of the product is filled with experimentation, failure, and analysis. A rapid product development strategy involves iterative development and constructing prototypes at each stage. In a rapid innovation scenario, prototype development provides the opportunity to explore new ideas and resolve outstanding questions without having to make a significant financial commitment. The challenge here is to maintain the balance between problem definition or clarification and their transformation to useful forms or embodiment.

According to Pradeep Kohli, CEO of Mavenir Systems, headquartered in Richardson, Texas, “Problem definition is critical for any technology to succeed in the real world. It defines the business objective which drives the technology decision points for development and implementation of solution.” Kohli continues, “Our experience has demonstrated that adaptability of people, processes, and products is more important to address the rapidly changing marketplace with a fairly fast development cycle.”

Also problem definition would be holistic if it captures the customer perspectives. “Problem definition which includes understanding customer requirement and customer pain points is more important. Ideally more time should be spent on problem definition and high level and detailed design of the solution or product and lesser time on implementation.” says Shekar Nair, CEO of Elina, headquartered in Bangalore, India. Nair further adds, “The market place is continually changing and the growing dependence on newer technologies is causing market windows to shrink.”

The future customer can be involved in the early stages of problem definition. As Jogen Pathak, CEO of Varaha Systems, headquartered in Dallas, Texas puts it, “The important thing is defining the problem from the customer’s view point - which takes the most time. Understanding the market demand, and positioning can be challenging. The key to rapid development is having interested customers and their involvement and feedback”.