Читать книгу Fostering Innovation. How to Build an Amazing IT Team онлайн

42 страница из 44

To accomplish failing fast or, hopefully, succeeding fast, use a prototype. A prototype is a mockup or partially working sample of the final product. I once worked with a business analyst who mocked up an entire business intelligence dashboard in Microsoft PowerPoint slides. To test the concept, we pretend clicked on buttons and then flipped to the page in the slide deck that the actual application would go to when it was completed. This desktop simulation was a quick way to test and iterate the concept before it was built. As an added benefit, the prototype served as a business requirement document for the development team.

The next step in our rapid-prototyping process was to have the development team build a working prototype in HTML. This was still a mockup, but the next step had actual users try the application on a computer. The computer mockup generated more changes, and the process was repeated until an acceptable design was found. If the business intelligence dashboard was a failure, it would be identified during prototyping, preventing us from wasting money on development.