Abstract
Rapid Application Development (RAD) has been proposed by some as the latest ‘silver bullet‘ to address the software crisis, while others have likened it to ‘old wine in new bottles’, suggesting that it doesn’t really provide anything new in terms of tools or techniques. Researchers have noted that while much has been written on the subject, there is a paucity of empirical research on the concept in practice. This paper discusses the rationale behind the emergence of RAD and the fundamental principles underpinning it. The findings of a preliminary study which investigated the RAD phenomenon in practice are presented. Briefly, the study findings focus on the profile of RAD usage, suitability criteria for using RAD on development projects, and how RAD is used to deliver its mission of faster development, within budget and without sacrificing system quality.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Preview
Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.
References
Martin, J. (1991) Rapid Application Development, Macmillan, USA
Gane, C. (1989) Rapid Systems Development, Prentice-Hall, USA.
DSDM(1995) Dynamic Systems Development Method, Tesseract Publishing, UK
Naur, P. Randell, B. and Buxton, J. (1976), Software Engineering: Concepts and Techniques, Charter Publishers, New York.
Jayaratna, N. (1994) Understanding and Evaluating Methodologies, McGraw Hill, London.
Flaatten, P., McCubbrey, D., O’Riordan, P. and Burgess, K. (1989) Foundations of Business Systems, Dryden Press, Chicago.
Business Week (1988) The software trap: automate—or else, Business Week, May 9, 142–154.
Taylor, T, and Standish, T. (1982) Initial thoughts on rapid prototyping techniques, ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes, 7, 5, 160–166.
Bowen, P. (1994) Rapid Application Development: Concepts and Principles, IBM Document No. 94283UKT0829.
Fitzgerald, B. (1997) Systems Development Methodologies: Time to Advance the Clock, in Wojtowski, G. (Editor) Systems Development Methods for the Next Century, Plenum Press, New York.
Verity, J. (1987) The OOPS revolution. Datamation, May 1, 73–78.
Brooks, F. (1987) No silver bullet: essence and accidents of software engineering. IEEE Computer Magazine, April, 10–19.
Baum, D. (1992) Go totally RAD and build applications faster, Datamation, September, pp.79–81.
Card, D. (1995) The RAD fad: is timing really everything?, IEEE Software, September.
Mimno, P. (1991) What is RAD?, American Programmer, 4, 1.
Butler, T. And Fitzgerald, B. (1997) A case study of user participation in the IS development process, Proceedings of the 19th International Conference on Information Systems, Atlanta, Georgia.
Yourdon, E. (1979) Classics in Software Engineering. Yourdon Press,New York.
Sinha, M (1997) Development Practices at Microsoft, Seminar given at the Sixth International Conference on IS Development, Boise, Idaho, 11–14 August 1997.
Boehm, B. (1981) Software Engineering Economics. Prentice Hall, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey.
DeMarco, T. (1978) Structured Analysis and System Specification, Yourdon Press, New Jersey.
Beynon-Davies, P. Tudhope, D. and Mackay, H. (1997), Integrating RAD and participatory design, in Avison, D. (Ed) Key Issues in Information Systems, McGraw-Hill, UK, pp.317–330.
Beynon-Davies, P. Carne, C. Mackay, H. and Tudhope, D. (1998), A comparison of seven RAD projects, in Avison, D. and Edgar-Nevill, D. (Eds) Matching Technology with Organisational Needs, McGraw-Hill, UK, pp.127–140.
O’Connor, A. (1996) An Empirical Investigation of the Implementation of the Rapid Application Development Approach, Unpublished MSc Thesis, University College Cork.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 1999 Springer-Verlag London
About this paper
Cite this paper
Fitzgerald, B. (1999). A Preliminary Investigation of Rapid Application Development in Practice. In: Wood-Harper, T., Jayaratna, N., Wood, B. (eds) Methodologies for Developing and Managing Emerging Technology Based Information Systems. Springer, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3629-3_8
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4471-3629-3_8
Publisher Name: Springer, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-85233-079-8
Online ISBN: 978-1-4471-3629-3
eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive