Pace 58 j | | | Motivation of Players Crucial to Suce They are, therefore, more committed to. € 'The executive owner, sometimes called executive sponsor, a high-level user executive who funds the system '' and "owns" it. This executive must be i machines ever ; MARTIN easier to use, the work of building systems becomes more of a sociological probleni and less of a technical one. Many of the elements of RAD are in- tended to improve the facility for hu- man communication. So the choice of participants in the life cycle must be based more on their skills in human in- teraction. Rapid applications develop- ment, like team sports, depends greatly on the skills of certain critical players who must know their roles and perform them well. ; h ln team sports, excellent eguipment is only one aspect in a team's formula for success. Team members must be highly specialized, well-trained and must know how to work well together. For fast de- velopment, excellent tools are needed, but, people must know how to use the tools and work together as a highly co- ordinated team trained to use a well-de- signed methodology. As discussed in last week's column, there are four phases in the RAD life-cy- cle process: the reguirements-planning Joint-keguirements-Pla And Joint Application- Design Phases APPLJED INTELIGENCE This is the the process, unlike in the lensthy tradi'/ ' eighih in a se: tional life cycle. sija ries on rapid With the RAD life cycle, the managerš applications de- - who'start a project are more easily held, velopment accountable for it because they will ', (RAD), a meth- . probably be there when it becomes opr: odology de erational. They will have a strong incefi«'' 'signed to give tive to make it succeed. If the initiation, much faster re of the project is far back in the past, 1, -Vi sults than the this accountability is lost. < " beg ž traditional life Key members of the end-user team in. | OAMES cycle. clude the following: Mai As we make Zooming In on the RAD Life Cycle h | structicn and decides whether any mod- ' ifications are needed before cutover. % The training manager, the person te- sponsible for training users in how to use the system. This person organizes the design and creation of training ma- terials and plans the training process. The training manager may be from the | information-systems (IS) community. To ensure that the users are fully in- ' volved, groups of key users dre selected to participate in every phase. They may | form the following groups: a reguire- % ments-planning team, a user-design (/, team, a construction-assistance team, a 4 user review board and a cutover team. To a large extent, the same users play li | il nuriing | Keep the Ball Rolling fivities have to move fast, and so the people who can make be highly motivated. They must have ||. deadlines and work well undef pressure to meet, the deadlines. ferent at different stages of the life cycle. FEBRUARY 12, 1990 ess of RAD Process % Human-factors expert, a specialist on human factoring who is responsible for | usability testing. ; 6 Data-modeling expert, a specialist V with experience in data modeling who can create data models rapidly and competently. 6 Repository manager, an executive re- sponsible for the integrated computer- aided software engineering (CASE) re- pository and its integrity. He or she may control what; reusable constructs are in the repository. The repository manager is particularly important in an environ- ment of information engineering or reus- able design. Teams are very important in the RAD life cycle. The reguirements-planning , team and the user-design team are to- gether for a short period. The construction team, if it works well, should stay together for many projects. The players in each team should maximize positive interaction. The members of the construction team may be changed if necessary to increase its effectiveness. At each phase of a project, certain ac- this happen must . 'Those who must work guickly are dif- At the start, it is critical that man- agement, including the executive own- er, initiate the project guickly, cutting through any potential political delays or bureaucracy. At the reguirements- planning stage, the key users must par- ticipate in the JRP workshop and, fol- phase, the user-design phase, the con- struction phase and the cutover phase. The functions performed by critical players in the first two phases of the RAD life cycle are šhown in the figure. Reguirements planning is done in a user joint reguirements planning (JRP) workshop. A team of high-level users identifies the reguirements under the guidance of a workshop leader. Members of the reguirements-planning team must be able to think creatively about how operations could be [ - also move guickly. Le dotn Avaktan To avoid delays at any part of the life the system. They must be able to make % i ; cycle, each phase must come into play vel ts about the value Gb With the ! o ea ME potential system , RAD . show. A workshop similar to the JRP work- life cycle, the managers who start a project !. The players for each phase must be noptbe join h are more easiliy held accountable for it because they will . ready to play their role; they must be workshop—is used in the user-de- probably be there when the i .. highly motivated to move fast and work sign phase. The team of users who par- Haeja hard for their part of the project. Suc- ticipate in the JAD workshop usually in-: > h Eni Kudes some members of the JRP work- - shop. In this phase, more detailed committed to eo ns made about tne design of 9 The user Prej rtede polegel regulre: prjfedjoe with the eveninal spat sena (ok CThis person is Of this team. should be part Soraei Members of the ponor ie evolution st be ote da. ete | example, that trma tne ensuring, for 8 The god na rah iko BCTDNA Cal era that tant items. do not omit impor- shop. A characteristic of the RAD life the regulremen | nsfer Institute, is (he iInvolvement of mea should | wih, mta M: Calif. sage Te sort Me ce slovo ubere om a ; kadi % The JAD ; 5. 90402 (218. 9998905. In kuropo, con- resulis of activities they start. . usera that revleva tne zrno pralpiij Pan dont pa o tact Savant, 2 New St, Carnforth, mm and JAD. l gi k tio: | bio m) U dil HI s] A o ' i lowing that, users must, move swiftly to the JAD workshop. During construc- tion, the IS team using the ICASE tool set for detailed design and code genera- At the end of the life cycle, those re- sponsible for training and cutover must the Workshops Janc LA5 9BX United Kingdom JA ž (0524) 734 505. m must be geared to move guickly.