The fail fast method is frightening to some, invigorating to others

Fail fast means to try something, learn, and move on. Rather than taking a problem and engineering it to death, failing fast allows you to get real equipment going quickly and get real answers from the results of your work.

I prefer this method for the initial phases of work, provided your team adopts this methodology. It requires you to be really good in your field, and extrapolate ideas and results in advance, based on prior experience.

This method can always be paralleled or augmented with actual engineering and science of course.

Another benefit from this method is that you get things to show the customer results sooner. Not just scientific studies, but real working objects that help to prove a concept.

If a picture is worth 1000 words, then a real, tangible object is worth a million words.