It is often said that for successful innovation to occur, you must be prepared to” fail often, fail cheap”.

Early testing and prototyping speeds up innovation cycle times, the longer a project proceeds with issues  unnoticed or unfixed, the harder they become to fix, and the remediation  is more costly and complicated.

Early failure enables hypothesis testing and idea generation, which can only increase the productivity of assets, human and otherwise that are applied to a development project.

The similarity to Lean Manufacturing methodology is extreme, where small batches matched to demand lead to smaller inventory of raw materials, finished goods and WIP.