Joint Application Development (JAD) is a process in which group of people is collecting business requirements for developing of the new information system. JAD consists of a workshops where and the participants divided into workers from a company and IT specialists meet several times to define and review the business requirements for the system. The workshop follows a detailed agenda in order to guarantee that all uncertainties between parties are covered and to help prevent any miscommunications that may cause serious flaws in the future information system.
Joint Application Design was developed by Chuck Morris who worked for IBM and Tony Crawford in the late 1970’s. In 1980 Crawford and Morris taught JAD in Toronto and Crawford led several workshops to prove the concept. The results were encouraging and JAD became a well accepted approach in many companies.