PROTOTYPING - DOES YOUR VIEW OF ITS ADVANTAGES DEPEND ON YOUR JOB

We investigate the use of prototyping and compare the attitudes of exp erienced software development personnel, from a number of large organi zations, to the advantages and disadvantages of the waterfall and prot otyping approaches for a number of attributes. Our survey shows the gr eatest use of prototyping in the design phase and least in the impleme ntation phase; its use in the analysis phase is comparatively low. We find that there are some significant differences in our respondents' p erceptions of the two approaches. We then categorize the respondents i nto three occupation groups: managers, software engineers, and analyst s. For prototyping, we find that there are differences between the gro ups' perceptions of three attributes: communication with users, commun ication with IS personnel, and ease of use. Overall analysts rate prot otyping attributes higher than the other two groups. For the waterfall approach, there are differences in the groups' perceptions of three a ttributes, control, communication with IS personnel, and cost. Overall , managers rate waterfall attributes higher than the other two groups.