The RAD Methodology

Rapid application development

methodology

Public Domain

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:

1. 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.

2. 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.