> CompatPP Philosophy

Scope creep and the changing environment

One of the most difficult activities in an IT project is to analyse the requirements from the customer. Every organization has a certain perspective on the goals of the new system. However during projects requirements appear to be incomplete or incorrect. The causes for this situation are:

• Users are in general not capable of imagining the functionality of the new to develop system.
• In general users are not capable to determine if the functional design of the system full meets their requirements.
• When the new system is being delivered users will get new idea’s on what functionality should be covered.
• Software development can take quite some time. During this time an organization and the processes can change resulting in different requirements.

This all leads to changing functional requirements during the project. In many cases users do also change their requirements when the software is being delivered, because when they see the working software they realize the requirements were incorrect or incomplete. Projects are delayed and have budget overruns. In many cases the software becomes hard to maintain because no clear software architecture is applied.

The solution for this problem is iterative development of a fully functional prototype. A prototype which can be tested by the users. In this case users don’t have to assume how the application is going to work, they can experience it. Users can directly use the application and verify the available functionality. They will get even more inspired and will come up with solutions that supports their work and therefore the business goals of your company. This process will be performed in an iterative way to come to a correct specification.