[Sigia-l] rapid prototyping by business managers

[Listera]

"HK Dunston" wrote:

> He is convinced that the (non-technical) company business managers need to
> build some sort of prototype before any vendors have been hired to build the
> application. He has the idea that this prototyping effort will help to scope
> the project more accurately -- that the business manager would put together
> something simple, get approval from various stakeholders and *then* hire a
> firm to build the full application.

He has absolutely the right instinct.
 
> Setting aside the (rather large) problem of whether business managers
> understand enough about IA or technology constraints to design a prototype,
> has anyone done something like this before? What did the prototype look
> like? How successful was it in clarifying scoping, getting early feedback,
> etc? What was its relationship to the final product?

The prototype (in this instance) can and should demonstrate *functionality,*
not performance, compliance, efficiency, maintainability, etc.
 
> As you might imagine, I'd like to steer the process in a different
> direction -- I was hoping that some horror-stories would help build my case.

You mean horror stories about outside firms that didn't quite understand
what the business priorities were or pushed their pet technology over other
considerations, etc? :-)

> Of course this may just be professional bias -- who says business managers
> can't build prototypes?

Currently? The sorry state of prototyping tools.

Ziya
Nullius in Verba