All of these methods are highly related, and have been devised to allow development teams to meet short time to market.

The methods are not applicable to every software development effort, but have been successfully used for business and engineering applications. They work by:

• Providing early and regular visibility of functionality through iterative development techniques
• Securing business involvement throughout the development process – actively involving users in the development of the system, making them members of a virtual development team and co-locating the development team with the users
• Building and managing a rapid development team. ‘People factors’ are critical to the success of the approach – a small, non-hierarchical, cohesive and experienced team who work well together and share common values and behaviour is an important facet to the approach
• Minimising communication overheads within the team, and focusing documentation predominantly on users and external parties
• Rethinking the software development life-cycle model, and embracing the challenges that this presents in ensuring that quality is not compromised
• Making testing and implementation integrated parts of the development life-cycle rather than performing them in isolation
• Redesigning the test process to minimise overhead, minimise duplication and to focus on ensuring that the maximum business benefit is delivered in the shortest possible time.

Not all projects are suitable for the RAD approach as it needs significant buy-in from the sponsor. DSDM is a registered trademark of Dynamic Systems Development Method Limited, see more at www.dsdm.org