Rapid Prototyping

If you have an idea for a new product or direction, I can help you reduce risk and get the project off to a good start by putting together a rapid prototype. This can be particularly helpful when your team has their hands full with your current products, and you would prefer not to risk them getting distracted with new stuff that may not pan out.

I prefer to group these projects into those where the code is likely to be re-used, and those where it's guaranteed to be a throw-away. There are optimizations and short-cuts that I can take in the latter group that are a very bad idea in the former group.

A rapid prototype differs from a proof of concept (POC) in that a prototype tends to be more code-oriented, whereas a POC tends to be more integration or configuration-oriented.

I prefer to keep these engagements relatively short; usually from two to four weeks.

A rapid prototype might include:

• Coding in C# (sorry, not VB.NET)
• Concrete demonstrations of ultra-fast performance and scalability techniques
• Moving from Java to .NET
• Silverlight
• ASP.NET
• Windows Presentation Foundation (WPF)
• SQL Server (including schema and query design, native XML, full text search, etc)
• Analysis Services (SSAS) (including MDX and ADOMD.NET)
• Data mining
• Data warehousing
• Integration Services (SSIS)

The deliverables for a rapid prototype normally consist of a Visual Studio solution (and associated files) and a demonstration.

If this interests you, please send the following information, so that I can provide a quote:

• A brief description of your project
• Your goals for the prototype, including which technologies would be involved (and a specification if you have one)
• Your schedule requirements