In the past few years there has been an increase in the demand for new business applications. That said, Information Technology or “IT,” as its popularly known, has been unable to cater to this particular need. In fact, recent statistics released by Mendix have shown that 71 percent of IT teams are behind when it comes to meeting the demand. In addition, 65 percent of IT teams have also noted that there is a shrink in the turnaround expected by businesses when it comes to custom development projects. All that said, Rapid Application Development has quickly become a necessity.

There are many reasons why Rapid Application Development is quickly gaining the attention of many IT teams. For instance, rapid application development tools have been known to prioritize agility and speed, therefore, enabling IT teams to improve their project outcomes as well as increase their productivity. In addition to these two advantages, Rapid Application Development also allows IT teams to develop and come up with new applications in a matter of days as opposed to the typical turnaround of months when coming up with a new application using the common method.

Rapid Application Development is able to develop applications faster thanks to the following reasons:

• There is the reuse of various software components;
• There is no need for lots of formality as well as team communication;
• One can gather requirements using focus groups or workshops; and
• There is early prototyping as well as user testing of the design.

Below you will get a more detailed look at the advantages that are associated with a rapid application development model.

Risk Reduction: The traditional way of handling the whole process of coming up with a new application meant that business had to wait for months before even the prototype could be completed. When finished, there might be certain errors after reviewing the whole prototype and, as a result, too much time would be wasted. With rapid application development, the whole process of coming up with a new prototype for an application takes a few days. The business can be able to review functionality much earlier; and if there is a problem, then they are able to deal with it earlier and avoid certain reworks that might end up derailing the whole project.

Increased Quality: Rapid Application Development has also played a role in the quality of the software. This tends to happen because the application’s requirements can easily be refined and validated earlier based on the feedback that has been received. This allows the IT team to incorporate a great prototype that is very impressive when it comes to functionality of the application. This couldn’t happen when the old method of developing applications was used, and it was a given that it would end up wasting lots of precious time and money.

Faster Time to Market: Being able to come up with an application quickly means that a business will be able to use the advantages that come with having the application ready earlier than expected as other new functionalities are released. In addition, this means that the business will have time to market the application that they have developed.

Increased Management: With Rapid Application Development, a manager can be able to manage a number of factors throughout the application development projects. For instance, the manager can be able to manage the cost of the entire project easily.

All that said, Rapid Application Development is well suited when it comes to delivering systems that are innovative and offer different functionalities. In general, these projects usually tend to require lots and lots of business involvement. In addition, there is a need for more iteration from the business to ensure that it stays within the current market.