In many engineering disciplines, prototyping is a technique employed mainly to improve the predictability of new projects involving risks. Prototyping has been adopted as a technique in software engineering for similar reasons. However, there is little documented experience with the use of prototyping in industrial software production. The following report aims to fill this gap by presenting case studies of industrial software projects explicitly using prototyping.The five projects selected for examination range from a large-scale project in the order of 240 person-years to a small 2-person-year project. The developer teams involved range from DP departments of large industrial corporations to small-to-medium-sized software manufacturers.The report closes with an analysis of the benefits and limitations of prototyping.Prototyping is by no means a new concept. In mechanical and civil engineering, prototyping is a technique used routinely to improve the predictability of new projects that involve risk. Prototyping has been adopted as a technique in software engineering for similar reasons. 0959-3845/92/$03.50
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