If you go the prototype route, it is critical that management knows that it is an exploration and no running code will result from it - just knowledge. I am a s

If you go the prototype route, it is critical that management knows that it is an exploration and no running code will result from it - just knowledge. I am a super big fan of prototypes in my domain. They take under a week usually. We use them to crack the hardest nuts on an upcoming project and usually learn something(s) very valuable that guide the design of the v1 product/solution. Usually these are the learnings we would not have gotten to until mid-way or more in a real project, but we can prototype it, preventing all the potential rework.