Scaling up Output Capacity and Performance Results From Information Systems Prototypes

Abstract

The advantage of information system prototyping arises from its predict problems and end-user satisfaction with a system early in the development process, before significant commitments of time and effort have been made. Predictions of problems and end-user satisfaction have risen in importance with the increasing complexity of business information systems and the exponential growth of database size. This research investigates the reporting of information to an end user, and the process of inferring from a prototype to a full-scale information system. This inference is called scaling up, and is an important part of the systems development planning process. The research investigates information systems reporting from a linguistic perspective, where a database is used as a central receptacle for information storage. It then investigates the manner in which reporting statistics from the prototype information system may be used to infer the behavior and performance of the full-scale system. An example is presented for the application of the algorithm, and the final section discusses the usefulness, application, and implications of the algorithm developed in this research. © 1990, ACM. All rights reserved.