12.10.2: Rapid App Dev
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Rapid Application Development
Rapid application development (RAD) is a software-development (or systems-development) methodology that focuses on quickly building a working model of the software, getting feedback from users, and then using that feedback to update the working model. After several iterations of development, a final version is developed and implemented.
The RAD methodology consists of four phases:
- Requirements Planning. This phase is similar to the preliminary-analysis, system-analysis, and design phases of the SDLC. In this phase, the overall requirements for the system are defined, a team is identified, and feasibility is determined.
- User Design. In this phase, representatives of the users work with the system analysts, designers, and programmers to interactively create the design of the system. One technique for working with all of these various stakeholders is the so-called JAD session. JAD is an acronym for joint application development. A JAD session gets all of the stakeholders together to have a structured discussion about the design of the system. Application developers also sit in on this meeting and observe, trying to understand the essence of the requirements.
- Construction. In the construction phase, the application developers, working with the users, build the next version of the system.This is an interactive process, and changes can be made as developers are working on the program. This step is executed in parallel with the User Design step in an iterative fashion, until an acceptable version of the product is developed.
- Cutover. In this step, which is similar to the implementation step of the SDLC, the system goes live. All steps required to move from the previous state to the use of the new system are completed here.
As you can see, the RAD methodology is much more compressed than SDLC. Many of the SDLC steps are combined and the focus is on user participation and iteration. This methodology is much better suited for smaller projects than SDLC and has the added advantage of giving users the ability to provide feedback throughout the process. SDLC requires more documentation and attention to detail and is well suited to large, resource-intensive projects. RAD makes more sense for smaller projects that are less resource-intensive and need to be developed quickly.