The rapid application development (RAD) model focuses on iterative and incremental prototypes, aiming to accelerate effective software development and foster rapid holistic business process automation.
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The focus is on the software deliverables. Unlike the waterfall model, there are no extensive documentation efforts. This frees up time and saves on effort, allowing teams to focus on what's essential and improve their efficiency and throughput.
Right from the beginning, you inform all stakeholders, including end users of the software, about the status quo for each prototype. The teams ensure that feedback from all stakeholders is taken into account while they develop the product. This ensures holistic coverage of requirements and ensures that there is no scope creep or missed requirements.
Each prototype release ensures you build the features required incrementally, improving the software with each release. Feature-driven development ensures holistic functionality implementation, with an emphasis on quality.
Faster development means accelerated deployment times; you deliver working prototypes much faster than conventional methods. What used to take a couple of years or several months with the waterfall model will only take a few weeks with the RAD model.
The RAD model comprises the following phases, executed cyclically:
First, you determine the essential requirements of the end product, with a focus on the big picture. Requirements aren't gathered extensively—just the essentials. The onus is on gathering the crucial features that you expect from the end product and capturing the key goals for each prototype.
The end users, business stakeholders, and technical teams collaborate in this phase to churn out the architecture and plan for each prototype.
The tech teams initiate the development process here, developing the product's features and deploying them incrementally. Then you deliver the product in the form of prototypes. Each prototype incrementally builds upon its predecessor.
Developers deploy the prototype so that users and stakeholders can evaluate it. If you find any shortcomings compared to the desired end result, you rectify them in this stage. Once the stakeholders approve the initial prototype, you repeat the above process again for the next prototype. You repeat this process till you deliver the end product.
naturally enable faster development from a technological point of view. Developers can release frequent iterations while retaining the ability to customize components with code when required.
When the customer needs the finished product in a relatively short amount of time, RAD makes perfect sense. The methodology, especially combined with a strong low-code platform like Quickly, makes sure that rapid applicational development is done risk-free.
To derive maximum value from RAD, customers should commit to being involved in the software development life cycle (SDLC) process, meeting with developers for regular feedback sessions. Embarking on a RAD strategy without valuable feedback can result in the wrong apps being built.
Because Quickly creates applications quickly using components and blocks, the amount of code involved in a handover can be significantly reduced. New team members also have an easier time onboarding.
To enable your team to focus more on the product, using a platform that enables automatic updates across all applications can be hugely beneficial — such platforms align closely with RAD.
