From Idea to Pilot/Prototype: A 5x5 Approach [1 of 3]

Snapshot: Systematic Approach to Pilots
From Pilot to Reflection: A 5=5 Method [2 of 3]
From Reflection to Report: A 5<5 Report [3 of 3] 

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A pilot design needs to match the project.  Each project is unique. When prototyping ideas in small projects is that there is no common design structure to report what was tried, whether it worked, learnings from failures, how a next step was tinkered and final learnings.  We do, observe, reflect, iterate, do... and it turns into something concrete or we move on. 

Here is a 5x5 approach to move from idea to pilot/prototype:

5 Questions: Pilot/Prototype Development 

1) What do I want to learn from the pilot/prototype? 

2) What is the headline if it is a success?

3) What is the best method/approach to learn from this pilot/prototype? What is the smallest thing that I can do and test whether to pursue further, pivot or abandon? How will I gather information?  

4) Will the method lead to the headline identified? 

5) What is the milestone/time frame to quickly evaluate whether to pursue this idea further?

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5 Questions: Personal-Professional Development

1) Why am I doing this? What do I want to learn?

2) What is my role? What part pushes my learning edge?

3) Who are the smart people that I want to learn from/with on this pilot? 

4) How can I assess my learning and/or skill development? 

5) Does this approach enable the learning that I want?  

Attribution: this approach reflects a mashup from brilliant mentoring, modeling, discussions with many people... including Bruce Ettinger, Nancy Dubler, E. Nathaniel Gates, David Karshmer, Rachel Remen, Edward Harran, Andrew Lyon, Ian Page, and many more.

Do you have a method for taking an idea to pilot? Please share your approach.  
If you experiment with this approach, let us know how it went.