RAD is a condensed development process that allows for a quality system with low investment.
Only contains four phases:
- Requirements planning
- User design
- Construction
- Cutover
Pros
- Most effective for well-defined business objective projects and clear user group and not computationally complex.
- Great for small to medium time sensitive projects.
- Final product often matches user’s needs and expectations closely as working software is available much earlier than conventional methods.
- Greater level of commitment and ownership from stakeholders.
Cons
- Requires a stable deeply knowledgeable team (due to tight deadlines, testing and lack of documentation).
- Can lead to inconsistent designs across system, inconsistent naming conventions and documentation.
- Lacks modularity and scalability.