Prototypes Are Forever Evolving from a Prototype Project to a Full-Featured System

Abstract

Prototypes are a well known, widely accepted development practice but, if not carefully evolved, they can become a nightmare to maintain. This paper presents the experience of a four person agile team who successfully grew a prototyped system to a full-featured application without any clear transition in the project. The paper describes how the project started with a very simple prototyping goal, evolved through iterations and spikes to a partly working system and transformed, in the end, in a complete application widely tested and refactored.