Rad - Rapid Application Development

Rapid Application Development, as the name suggests

, is a development model designed to provide faster development and better quality compared to the results achieved with traditional lifecycle models. The idea is to build application in a very short amount of time by taking maximum advantage of powerful development tools that have evolved in recent years. Under this model developers use different techniques like Prototypes, Iterative Customization and CASE Tools to produce applications in rapid time.

The model developed in late 80s is arguably as valid today as 20 years ago. The concept was originated from introduction to prototyping and iterative development, defined from the Spiral Model of Software Development and Enhancement to focus on reducing risk of project escalation and over-run. Businesses and development houses soon observed that the rapidly changing nature of business requirements was not feasible for models based on traditional software development lifecycle. Software development done using Waterfall development model was often resulting in failure to meet client needs due to longer development time during which requirement was often changed before completion. This resulted in delivering complete but outdated systems to businesses. The main problem was due to the strictness to follow different stages of development required to run in an ordered manner. I.e. one lifecycle stage of development must be completed in order to move to the next lifecycle stage. To counter such issues faced during 1980s, a methodology was developed called Rapid Iterative Production Prototyping (RIPP). The focus was on using small teams of highly qualified, motivated and experienced resources to develop and deliver applications in a short timeframe. The same concept was further expanded and formalized by its originator, James Martin, and named Rapid Application Development.

It is understood that by increasing development speed, businesses will have to compromise on certain areas like reducing scalability and feature sets from the application. However, the price paid was justified in order to achieve fast delivery using Computer Aided Software Engineering or CASE tools which focused on speedy conversion of requirement to code. The scope is reduced by pushing certain features to future releases and achieving a light version of an application as soon as possible. In comparison to traditional models, RAD altered the vision to quality by focusing on reducing maintenance costs while still meeting the needs of users in a quick time by emphasizing on involving users into the analysis and designing stages.

The model arguably does not fit to all types of IT requirements. It works best where the project scope is fairly small and can be achieved by breaking down into smaller and manageable chunks. To accommodate this, the team must be small but with a right mix of skills and experience to manage all technical areas in the project. Additionally it is significant that to get the maximum out of RAD model, business objectives and project scope is well defined before the initiation with preferably one decision maker from the client side who must be identified upfront. It is essential that with agreement to use RAD, the client must have full understanding of the expected application which will be less featured and might incur more development cost in the long run in exchange for faster development.

Over the past 10 years, technology and business needs have both shrunk much smaller in sizes. Today IT users are not just large corporations but from small business users to independent customers, all are aspiring to use IT applications to enhance and achieve their business objectives effectively. Such a change and fierce demand of IT applications on a small level has further validated the use of RAD model for IT Application Development. The rising competition among business users is pushing a demand for faster delivery in order to stay ahead to their competitors. With smaller budgets and time in hand, they cannot afford to put too much at stake and support longer development cycles. The plan is to purchase reusable components and build over them with time by investing various but little chunks of funds.

Another interesting aspect is the speed by which service providers has increased over the past 10 years. Where this has opened up a bigger market and provided more options for IT customers or aspirants, it has increased the risk for IT service providers. Service providers now have lesser security and the scope of error has reduced severely. For them there are only two things of importance one the customer and other is the product. It is not difficult to understand that if you take care of a customers, they are ought to return. However, if you take care of a product, it doesnt come back! This straightaway emphasizes on delivering quality output at a very rapid rate with a no margin to make mistakes. Service providers are often prepared to offer services like designing POCs (proof of concepts) and small prototype applications for either free of cost or at much lesser prices in order to retain older and attract new customers. All these factors are driving IT customers and providers to adopt RAD model for application development.

by: OTS Solution

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