As the trajectories of business development converged towards quicker implementation through failing faster and adaptation to rapid changes in needs and demands, we reached a point where the overly-prudent traditional approaches to project management were not enough.

This inadequacy was particularly felt in the software development industry where innovations and breakthroughs occur faster and with more frequency. Rapid application development (RAD) as an idea was originally conceived out of frustration with the rigidity of the conventional methods in the 1970s and 1980s. These methods which are referred to as waterfall methodologies followed the norms and best practices of managing traditional engineering projects which included extensive requirement gathering, pre-planning, and design processes that took months or even years to develop. The problems with this approach were gradually revealed when customers or end-users were not happy with the final products because they realized that the requirements they signed off months or years in advance were not what they wanted.

Of course, these traditional methodologies are not a thing of the past as they are still widely used today. At its heart, the adoption of methodology for software development is a cost-benefit analysis. In highly structured environments where the technical risk is high and changes in the later stages of development cause excessive costs—both in financial and non-financial terms— waterfall methodologies tend to be the more viable options whereas in highly experimental environments where even requirements are not completely known or specified in advance, taking the extra time to plan and analyze an approach only to scrape it later is not the most cost-effective use of resources.

In today’s tech scene where the path of actualizing new ideas is bumpy and full of uncertainty, the RAD methodology helps us achieve faster turnarounds by minimizing requirement specification and planning to reach a working prototype or minimum viable product as quickly as possible.

This development philosophy lends itself well to software development because software is malleable and is far more transient than many fields of engineering that preceded it. A software program is not an architectural building that maintains its structure permanently. On the contrary, the software can and typically does undergo multiple changes throughout its life cycle.

Core Phases of RAD Methodology

There are multiple takes and variations of RAD as an alternative to the traditional waterfall model but they all share the following core steps.

1. Define Requirements

In all RAD practices, an extra emphasis is placed on frequent communication. This step is the initial instance of communication in which users, developers, and managers reach a consensus as to the scope and requirements of the project much like in the waterfall model but without setting them in stone. This phase aims to provide the first stepping stone for the commencement of the project. Throughout the entire development period, requirements that were once believed to be valuable can be reconsidered and new ones can be added depending on the trajectory of the development process and the things that are discovered along the way.

2. Prototyping

This step is all about developing a prototype that the client can experience as quickly as possible. In the RAD philosophy, there is this notion that users and clients are far more capable of assessing and providing feedback when they can interact with a tangible prototype—however rudimentary and bare-bones it is—than defining the requirements abstractly. Through multiple iterations, the prototype keeps evolving to the final product.

Testing in this phase is rigorous and frequent. Developers and users work hand in hand to make sure that the business objectives are being tackled and bumps are ironed out. Also, since less attention is paid to planning in RAD and preparations are minimal compared to structured methodologies, the testing workload is significantly heavier. Test times are also reduced to facilitate subsequent iterations. Thus, technologies that provide automated assistance and test case generation such as the Testrigor test automation tool are central to reducing development time and cost.

3. Construction

At this stage, the software product is developed and finalized based on the beta systems and prototypes from the previous stage. Although this phase resembles the implementation phase of the software development life cycle, user feedback and changes are still welcomed and accepted. However, since problems and changes were continuously addressed during the prototyping phase, radical alterations are extremely unlikely. This makes the application development much faster than the waterfall approaches.

4. Cutover

The final phase in RAD is cutover which ends with the product launch. It includes integration, data conversion, testing, switching from the previous system to the new system, and training users.

In conclusion, because of the enhanced cooperation between users and developers and the early business functionality that the users get, projects that use RAD methodology typically achieve higher client satisfaction. However, that can be a double-edged sword since it requires time and effort on the client’s part. If the client does not remain committed to this approach until the very end, communication breakdowns can cause the project to fail. RAD also works best for small to medium-sized applications where all team members are knowledgeable and experienced.