Ingredients of RAD

A type of software development methodology that uses minimal planning in favor of rapid prototyping is referred as Rapid application development (RAD). Rapid application development comprises of four essential ingredients i-e methodology, management, people and tools. The speed of development will be affected if any one of these ingredients is missing.

People: In order to successfully introduce rapid development, the people should be trained. The commitment of people is a must to manage the change in the culture. To group together small teams working together on assignments is the best way. Speed is needed at each stage of development so it is critical that management initiate the project quickly.

Tools: The success of RAD is primarily dependent upon the tools because the RAD technology uses both human techniques and computerized tools. Automation support for systems development will be obtained by the use of powerful CASE tools. We should formalize and use the most effective family of techniques to deliver the system. To avoid from overlooking a complete list of tasks and techniques is fully documented to ensure that a task is performed in the proper way.

Methodology: RAD uses powerful application development to develop applications rapidly. Prototyping helps the users to visualize and suggest the required changes during the development stage. The structure of RAD is developed to ensure that it fulfills the needs of the users.

Management: The project needs to be managed for speed through the use of certain techniques such as facilitated Joint Requirements Planning (JRP) and Joint Application Design (JAD) workshops in order to extract users' requirements quickly. Timebox Management is used in Rapid Construction to deliver the system to the users interactively.