A01 chaf6542 06 se fm indd

Chapter 10  Change management

Prototyping

Prototyping

 is a common approach to the development of digital business systems; its 

essence is that it is:

● 

Rapid – Prototyping is part of a systems development approach known as ‘

RAD – Rapid 

Application Development

’ since the time from inception to completion is reduced to 

months rather than years. More rapid development is achieved through reducing the 

length of time of the analysis, design and build stages by combining them in conjunction 

with the use of graphical software tools with which applications can be built quickly from 

 pre‑  assembled  components.

● 

Simple – Skeleton applications are produced as prototypes that do not contain all the 

functions of a system but are a framework which gives a good indication to users of the 

information available and the look and feel of an application. They can then comment on 

it and say, for example, ‘this information is missing’ or ‘we like that feature, but it would 

be nice to do that also’ or ‘that feature isn’t necessary, it’s not what we meant’.

● 

Iterative – Prototypes are produced often at a frequency of one every few days or weeks so 

that the comments from the last review can be fed into the evolving system.

● 

Incremental – Each prototype incorporates the feedback from the previous review, so each 

version of the application has a limited number of new features.

● 

 User‑  centred – Users are involved at all stages of development, in describing the existing 

system, reviewing the