Scenario Based Prototyping: When Open Source meets the Video Star

Prototyping is crucial to the success of Information Systems Development (ISD) projects, especially those of a more equivocal nature. Prototyping efforts face inherent tensions between the need for producing high-fidelity complex prototypes and producing them quickly and at low cost. This paper describes how a number of ISD teams focused on stitching together relatively low-cost high-fidelity prototypes through the loose assembly of pre-existing open source software (OSS) components. Video recordings were captured of the role playing use of these prototypes by realistic persona in realistic scenarios. These videos were replayed to stakeholders in order to provoke a response and to capture their rich insights. We use the acronym OSP to represent this method of Open Source Scenario-Based Prototyping. Based on observations of the activities of these teams, the paper is in a position to describe a high level method for producing OSPs.