September 2001
Volume 3 • Number 4
ContentsSo
PROJECT MANAGEMENT
Evolutionary Prototype Model for Web Projects
by K. Phani Madhavi and Alice Leslie Jacob, Network Systems
and Technologies (P) Ltd.
It is often felt that documented software development processes
cannot be followed for Web projects. But like any other
project, Web projects have users, requirements, schedules
to meet, and quality goals. Aspects of project management,
requirements management, change control, and quality management
are applicable to Web projects, also.
The difficulty in fully specifying the requirements at the
beginning of the project makes the conventional waterfall
model unsuitable for Web application development. In the
traditional prototyping model, the prototype is essentially
for capturing the requirements and is thrown away as soon
as the purpose is served. For Web projects, this is both
unnecessary and uneconomical in terms of effort and schedule
requirements.
This article discusses the evolutionary prototype model
for Web projects. The system is developed in increments
and is continuously modified based on end-user or customer
feedback. The life cycle the authors followed, the estimating
and scheduling aspects, the risks they faced, and their
mitigation are addressed.
Key words: customer feedback, iterative process, prototyping,
software development life cycle.
INTRODUCTION
The life cycle selected for a project has great influence
on that project’s success. The life-cycle model consists
of the sequence of activities to be carried out and establishes
the criteria for proceeding from one task to the next. Different
projects have different development objectives, even though
they all need to be developed “as fast as possible”
(McConnell 1996). Products whose reliability is important
must be developed more carefully than products whose reliability
does not matter much. The practices followed in the development
of a life-critical system are very different from those suited
to the development of a custom business software application.
Thus, the life-cycle model for a project must be decided considering
the development objectives of the project. Does one need a
slight speed edge, more predictability, better progress visibility,
lower costs, or more speed at all costs? (McConnell 1996)
The key to the successful execution of a software development
project lies in adhering to software development fundamentals,
backed by careful selection of effective practices, that complement
each other to form the software development strategy for the
project.
The inherent advantage for Web projects is Web hosting,
which enables customers to review the product as it develops.
Hence, the development strategy chosen should incorporate
visibility-oriented practices. Also, for Web-based projects,
the requirements get updated as the customer reviews a working
prototype of the project. Hence, an incremental development
model with frequent customer or end-user interaction is
the one best suited for these applications.
The full text of this article may be
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