Joint Application Development

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.

Fishbone Ishikawa Diagram

The Ishikawa diagram is a graphical method for finding the most likely causes for an undesired effect. The method was first used by Kaoru Ishikawa in the 1960s. Because of its shape, it is also known as the fishbone diagram. Another name for this technique is: the cause-and-effect diagram. The fishbone diagram is a method used in a large verity of business situations and is also known as root cause analysis.

The most common use of the Ishikawa diagram is in product design, to identify factors leading to the final effect. Mazda Motors used a Ishikawa diagram in the development of the Miata sports car, where the required result was "Jinba Ittai" or "Horse and Rider as One". The main causes included such aspects as "touch" and "braking" with the lesser causes including highly granular factors such as "50/50 weight distribution" and "able to rest elbow on top of driver's door". Every factor identified in the diagram was included in the final design.

Performance Measurement

Performance will be measured against the service level targets specified above. For example below are three performance attributes:

Timeliness of Service - degree of success in meeting deadlines or milestones
Responsiveness - ability to react to a single event within a given time
Capacity - ability to handle the required workload or volumes successfully

Timeliness of Service

Timeliness of Service is part of SSR Model (Statement of Service Requirements) and it specifies degree of success in meeting deadlines or milestones.

Dynamic Systems Development Method

The dynamic systems development method (DSDM) provides a framework for an iterative and incremental approach to the development of Information Systems. It is one of a number of Agile methods for developing software and forms part of the Agile Alliance.

DSDM was developed in the United Kingdom in the 1990s and was first released in 1995. At this point in time (April 2005) the fourth version of the DSDM manual is in use. DSDM was developed by a consortium of vendors and experts in the field of IS development, the DSDM Consortium, combining their best-practice experiences. As an extension of rapid application development, DSDM focuses on Information System projects that are characterized by tight timescales and budgets. DSDM addresses the problems that frequently occur in the development of Information Systems with regards to going over time and budget and other common reason for project failure such as lack of user involvement and top management commitment.

Principles of DSDM

Underlying DSDM are the following key principles. These principles form the cornerstones of development using DSDM.
The main focus of DSDM is on delivering a system that addresses the current business needs. It is not so much directed at delivering a perfect system addressing all possible business needs, but focuses its efforts on those functionalities critical in achieving the stated project/business goals.
No system is built perfectly in the first try. In the process of developing an IS, 80 percent of the solution can be developed in 20 percent of the time needed to develop the complete and perfect solution. Perfecting the IS' last 20 percent often causes the project to go over deadlines and budgets. Because DSDM focuses on delivering exactly that what the business needs, it is most times unnecessary to construct the perfect solution.
Project delivery should be on time, on budget and with good quality. How this is achieved will be addressed in a later section.
The requirements for the IS need to be flexible. As will be addressed later, flexible requirements are important enablers of DSDM.
DSDM only requires each step of the development to be completed far enough for the next step to begin. This way a new iteration of the project can commence without having to wait for the previous to be completed entirely. And with every iteration the system is improved incrementally.
Communication between project stakeholders is an important prerequisite for running an efficient and effective project.
User involvement is key in running an efficient and effective project.
The project teams need to be empowered to make decisions that are important to the progress of the project. Both Project Management and Development techniques are incorporated in DSDM. Next to developing new IS, DSDM can also be used in projects expanding current system or even non IT-related business change projects.