Rapid Application Development (RAD) - Methodology.

Rapid Application Development is a software development methodology that involves techniques like iterative development and software prototyping. According to Whitten (2004), it is a merger of various structured techniques, especially data-driven Information Engineering, with prototyping techniques to accelerate software systems development.[1]

In Rapid Application Development, structured techniques and prototyping are especially used to define users' requirements and to design the final system. The development process starts with the development of preliminary data models and business process models using structured techniques. In the next stage, requirements are verified using prototyping, eventually to refine the data and process models. These stages are repeated iteratively; further development results in "a combined business requirements and technical design statement to be used for constructing new systems".[1]

RAD approaches may entail compromises in functionality and performance in exchange for enabling faster development and facilitating application maintenance.

The shift from traditional session-based client/server development to open sessionless and collaborative development like Web 2.0 has increased the need for faster iterations through the phases of the SDLC.[2] This, coupled with the growing utilization of open source frameworks and products in core commercial development, has, for many developers, rekindled interest in finding a silver bullet RAD methodology.

Although most RAD methodologies foster software re-use, small team structure and distributed system development, most RAD practitioners recognize that, ultimately, there is no single "rapid" methodology that can provide an order of magnitude improvement over any other development methodology.

All flavors of RAD have the potential for providing a good framework for faster product development with improved code quality, but successful implementation and benefits often hinge on project type, schedule, software release cycle and corporate culture. It may also be of interest that some of the largest software vendors such as Microsoft[3] and IBM[4] do not extensively utilize RAD in the development of their flagship products and for the most part, they still primarily rely on traditional waterfall methodologies with some degree of spiraling.