  The possibility to engineer artificial Kitaev chains in arrays of quantum
dots coupled via narrow superconducting regions has emerged as an attractive
way to overcome the disorder issues that complicate the realization and
detection of topological superconducting phases in other platforms. Although a
true topological phase would require long chains, already a two-site chain
realized in a double quantum dot can be tuned to points in parameter space
where it hosts zero-energy states that seem identical to the Majorana bound
states that characterize a topological phase. These states were named "poor
man's Majorana bound states" (PMMs) because they lack formal topological
protection. In this work, we propose a roadmap for next-generation experiments
on PMMs. The roadmap starts with experiments to characterize a single pair of
PMMs by measuring the Majorana quality, then moves on to initialization and
readout of the parity of a PMM pair, which allows measuring quasiparticle
poisoning times. The next step is to couple two PMM systems to form a qubit. We
discuss measurements of the coherence time of such a qubit, as well as a test
of Majorana fusion rules in the same setup. Finally, we propose and analyse
three different types of braiding-like experiments which require more complex
device geometries. Our conclusions are supported by calculations based on a
realistic model with interacting and spinful quantum dots, as well as by
simpler models to gain physical insight. Our calculations show that it is
indeed possible to demonstrate nonabelian physics in minimal two-site Kitaev
chains despite the lack of a true topological phase. But our findings also
reveal that doing so requires some extra care, appropriately modified protocols
and awareness of the details of this particular platform.
