A communication architecture from rapid prototyping

Communication issues can become a progress-impeding burden to software projects requiring advanced group collaboration. Human and social factors, such as conflicting personalities, educational backgrounds, or different communication styles, play a large part in group communication. During a recent rapid prototyping project with over 30 collaborators, including software engineers, UI designers and non-technical customers, we understood that effective and efficient communication would be crucial to the success of our project. The communication architecture that we evolved through the project incorporates human and social factors so that team members with different backgrounds (e.g., UI design, software engineering, non-technical) can communicate effectively in an agile development environment.