Introduction to Software Engineering/Methodology

Software development methodology is used to structure, plan, and control the process of developing an information system. What are different approaches? and what are the basic principles of each approach?

2. Verb approaches

Prototyping

Software prototyping, is the development approach of activities during software development, the creation of prototypes, i.e., incomplete versions of the software program being developed.

The basic principles are:

Not a standalone, complete development methodology, but rather an approach to handling selected parts of a larger, more traditional development methodology (i.e. incremental, spiral, or rapid application development (RAD)).
Attempts to reduce inherent project risk by breaking a project into smaller segments and providing more ease-of-change during the development process.
User is involved throughout the development process, which increases the likelihood of user acceptance of the final implementation.
Small-scale mock-ups of the system are developed following an iterative modification process until the prototype evolves to meet the users’ requirements.
While most prototypes are developed with the expectation that they will be discarded, it is possible in some cases to evolve from prototype to working system.
A basic understanding of the fundamental business problem is necessary to avoid solving the wrong problem.