What Is The Right Amount Of Prototyping ? (software Developers Normally Prototype, And Demonstrate, Each?

change they intend to build into a system. But what is the “right amount” of prototyping ? Can a person “go overboard” with prototyping, doing too much of it so that they never have time to
do “real” work ? Who’s the arbiter of what the correct amount of prototyping ? Can a virtuoso programmer get away with doing no prototyping whatsoever ?)
Is there a “sweet spot” in the development, where an optimal amount of prototyping is performed ?


One Response to “What Is The Right Amount Of Prototyping ? (software Developers Normally Prototype, And Demonstrate, Each?”

  • Waikiki Kahuna:

    Prototyping is mainly to get feedback from the users. The amount of prototyping that needs to be done depends on how volatile the user’s desires are. If the user is really clueless then you might need to show many designs to them before they start to form useful opinions. If the user has a well-defined set of requirements, it may not be necessary to have as many iterations.
    Whoever is interacting with the user needs to decide how satisfied the user is with the direction that the project is going in. Then whoever is in charge of architecture decides when the next iteration needs to be based on that information.
    This can all happen directly if the developer is interacting directly with the user, or it may involve many people depending on how stratified the company is.
    The virtuoso may be able to program a bug-free and what he thinks is a clever design, but users often come up with crazy things that they want.
    You have to put your foot down when users start asking for new features, though, or you’ll end up with neverending scope creep.

Leave a Reply

You must be logged in to post a comment.