What are the pros and cons of rapid application development?

Answer 1

Strengths:

1. The operational version of an application is available much earlier than with Waterfall,

Incremental, or Spiral frameworks.

2. Because RAD produces systems more quickly and to a business focus, this approach

tends to produce systems at a lower cost.

3. Engenders a greater level of commitment from stakeholders, both business and technical,

than Waterfall, Incremental, or Spiral frameworks. Users are seen as gaining more of a

sense of ownership of a system, while developers are seen as gaining more satisfaction

from producing successful systems quickly.

4. Concentrates on essential system elements from user viewpoint.

5. Provides the ability to rapidly change system design as demanded by users.

6. Produces a tighter fit between user requirements and system specifications.

7. Generally produces a dramatic savings in time, money, and human effort.

Weaknesses:

1. More speed and lower cost may lead to lower overall system quality.

2. Danger of misalignment of developed system with the business due to missing

information.

3. Project may end up with more requirements than needed (gold-plating).

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4. Potential for feature creep where more and more features are added to the system over the

course of development.

5. Potential for inconsistent designs within and across systems.

6. Potential for violation of programming standards related to inconsistent naming

conventions and inconsistent documentation.

7. Difficulty with module reuse for future systems.

8. Potential for designed system to lack scalability.

9. Potential for lack of attention to later system administration needs built into system.

10. High cost of commitment on the part of key user personnel.

11. Formal reviews and audits are more difficult to implement than for a complete system.

12. Tendency for difficult problems to be pushed to the future to demonstrate early success to

management.

13. Since some modules will be completed much earlier than others, well-defined interfaces

are required.