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What affected the internal design?: Methodology

One of the most serious consequences of the prototyping in phase I was the poor database design. The screens were designed almost as if was a throwaway prototype without carrying through the entity model developed in the requirements study into a detailed database design (00752, 00750, 00367, 00424). The database grew in an ad hoc way (00417, 00503) so that its structure was not sound (00750) and as a consequence by the end of phase I needed re-engineering (00367). The problem was they didn't stop at any point and say now let's develop this properly (00367), perhaps the prototyping approach masked the need to do technical design work (00768, 00752). Keith, looking back, maintained they always intended rewriting the database (00815); I don't think this was their intention (00367) but in practice phase I became a throwaway prototype because it was rewritten in phase II (00815, 00503). One of the consequences of this lack of design was poor documentation (00424). Apart from the database design, the only other area to suffer from poor design was reinsurance which had to be rewritten during phase I (00265). In part the problem with reinsurance was that the users did not have a coherent view of requirements (00436).

Social influence:
Technical influence:
Process: Methodology

Commentary
Social influence
Technical influence

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© Clare Tagg 2000