Would someone out there please explain the difference between RAD and JAD? I've done JAD before and believe I have a pretty good handle on what it is and is not. However, someone recently introduced me to the subject of RAD and upon a cursory review, I can't tell the difference between the two even though I know there must be. Any help is apprecicated. Saving Changes...
Mark Price PerryBusiness Driven PMO Evangelist| BOT InternationalOrlando, Fl, United States
Dear Bethany, many folks use the terms JAD and RAD interchangeably, but in actuality they are different approaches altogther. Joint Application Development, or JAD, is a process that brings together business area people (users) and IT (Information Technology) professionals in a highly focused workshop. The advantages of JAD include improvement in the quality of the final product by focusing on the up-front portion of the development lifecycle so as to reduce the likelihood of errors or required changes that are timely and expensive to correct later on. JAD also reults in a shortening of the total life cycle time that it would otherwise take to complete a project. But the main aim of JAD is the collaborative, up front, work effort spent on requirements to get things right; not necessarily to hasten or rush through the project effort or to meet an early delivery commitment. Rapid Application Development, on the other hand, is a a software development process that allows usable systems (prototypes) to be built in as little as a few months, but often with some compromises. In a RAD effort, projects are planned with fixed timeframes, sacrificing functionality if necessary. This allows the development team to focus on the pieces of functionality that have the highest business value and to deliver that functionality rapidly. Since change is often the reason for delays in application
development, RAD combats scope and
requirements creep by limiting the project's exposure to change by using techniques to shorten the development cycle and limit the cost of change by incorporating it up-front before large investments are made in development and testing. RAD relies on extensive user involvement and Joint Application Design (JAD) sessions. As a side note, the term JAD was coined by IBM in the 1970s and originally stood for Joint Application Design. It has subsequently involved into Joint Application Development. Hence, all of the RAD/JAD term interchangeability. Though probably not correct technically, most people I work with (and me too!), use the terms JAD and RAD interchangeably and usually have in mind JAD when the discussion is about the focused workshop sessions to gather requirements and RAD when the discussion is about the actual development process for the application. I hope to hear and learn from others on this subject. Cheers..! -- Mark Perry, VP of Customer Care, BOT International
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