Exercise 2: Finding some common ground

Topic 1

Describe the steps involved with the Rapid Evolutionary Prototyping Approach
as it applies to developing a Web application. How is it related to agile development?


Rapid Evolutionary Prototyping is an iterative approach to software development which uses an initial prototype has been created from requirements which gathered from the stakeholders. This prototype is then used in testing to further develop it. This approach is suggested for small projects and the study guide provided for this subject (Eustace, 2009).

There are two main phases which are:

Phase 1- Evolutionary application prototyping; and

Phase 2 – Implementation

This model is very basic, and obviously each of these phases can be further broken down into other phases. In terms of developing a web based application I would see that there are atleast five main phases to the approach. These are as follows:

Phase 1 -Gather date and requirements from stakeholders for the web application.

Phase 2 –Implementation and Development of the web application prototype based on requirements determined in Phase 1.

Phase 3 – Test and Validate the web application and get user / stakeholder feedback.

Phase 4 – Iterate until the web application meets stakeholder needs.

Phase 5 – Implement the web application.

Agile development methods are a progression on the rapid evolutionary prototyping approach. Both Rapid Evolutionary Prototyping and Agile Development methods of development use rapid, frequent delivery of software to the user. Working directly with the stakeholders and constant quality communication are required in agile development and the rapid evolutionary prototyping approach. This is in contrast to software development methodologies which use a planned approach such as the waterfall model. As stated in Ince (2004) with the greater imperative for companies to develop products and services quickly, together with the infrastructure to support them the speed of development is critical to success. As such, rapid application development methodologies may be used to grow competitive advantage.