Comparison Of RAD, Waterfall, And Iterative Models In SDLC - An Essay.

1) Understand the role of Systems Engineering processes plays in producing a quality software development.

2) Understand and evaluate software tools and technology to enhance productivity and quality of software development.

3) Have developed skills of software documentation, quality assurance, evaluation and testing as part of software development.

RAD - Rapid Action Development

RAD is an abbreviation of Rapid Action Development. This software development model makes use of minimum planning (Sarker et al. 2015). Prototypes are created in this model from a very early stage. The prototypes or functional models are produced simultaneously in this model so that the development process can track bugs faster.

RAD or Rapid Application Development RAD can be considered as an incremental programming development activity highlights a short SDLC and empowers steady criticism from clients all through the product development life-cycle (Arora and Arora 2016). The principal target of Rapid Application Development is to keep away from broad pre-arranging, for the most part enabling programming to be composed significantly quicker and rolling out it less demanding to improvement requirements.

Waterfall Model is the conventional predictive approach based SDLC model. The waterfall model is consisting of five stages that are executed sequentially. The waterfall model is best suited for short and simple projects. The biggest drawback of the SDLC model that no additional requirement can be adjusted into the project system scope after the project requirement gathering phase is complete.

Various adaptive SDLC methodologies use the iterative approach for making the project processes more dynamic. The iterative models entails that various phases can be executed simultaneously. Thus, making the project team more efficient. For applying the approach, the system is divided into various units that are completed separately. 

Choice of the appropriate development model for using within the business is fundamental regarding conventional accomplishment of the activity (Kumar 2018). A Project Manager may employ the associated benchmarks for selecting a rational model to develop another project as per the requirements. The selection of a model over other models is powered by Requirement analysis, Project measure, Team estimate, Budget, criticality of the activity and a ton of different components (Dora and Dubey 2015). The diverse perspectives which should be remembered while choosing a reasonable procedure model can be chosen based on the following benefits:

1. Part-Based methodology might be perfect if the reuse of existing components is needed.
2. A Spiral SDLC could be used to achieve a very substantial activity with high risks or mind-boggling expense of failure.
3. Although an organisation’s client has categorised business aims yet the requirement is not set yet Agile (light Weight) SDLC will have the favourable as it is adaptable to changes.
4. If there are small teams and time is essential, an Agile methodology may be the best option for fast, informal interactions and collaboration between the teams (Sobri et al. 2016).
5. An Incremental procedure Model will provide a better quality assurance as it validates the code immediately after it is written.
6. If a system component needed to be programmed for an immediate need you could the use the Prototyping model, in this model feedbacks will be delivered quickly as well while allowing the component to perfectly fit into a fully operational system easily.
7. A Waterfall or Spiral process Model will help inexperienced developers to be on track and be aware of the project milestones.

RAD model specifics:

1. Less time is in hand to deliver a project.
2. The cost saving is an important part of the project. The model does that by developing quick prototypes.

• The model requires very few members to complete a project.

1. Measuring the project progress is a part if deliverable.
2. If all the requirements are clear then RAD model is a very effective methodology.
3. Users are considered as a significant part of the project.

Challenges: 

1. RAD model often misses many points as there is no specific software requirement collection method which creates comprise that project staff has to adapt for quicker software development (Alshamrani and Bahattab 2015).
2. The team performs based on the response speed of the user feedback. If the user gets confused, then the whole project will get paused.

As per the current growth in the industry and the exhaustive competition for getting better hold in the market, the organizations do not get a lot of time to implement something every time they want to change organization structure. The organization may want to implement a subsystem in any of the department or an application for short time purpose. For these kind of implementation minimum time of provided to the development team. The RAD or rapid action development approach becomes the most suitable solution. The RAD model is best suited for the development where end users are known and can be asked to participate in the development project. Taken as an example, the staff of a particular department can take part in the project by sharing the review against the developed prototypes. The waterfall model can be thought of an alternative to RAD model but die to short time allocated to the project the project team does not get enough time to gather and verify requirements. That is why the dynamic projects are completed using the RAD models. Organizations often use the LEAN development approach as an alternative of RAD. The reason is that LEAN is less costly. However, the quality of the project gets lower due to utilization of the LEAN model. Different projects are based on different situation, requirements and business needs.  

Waterfall Model

Table 1: A Comparison of SDLC models

Characteristics	RAD	Spiral	Incremental	Waterfall
Requirement	Time boxed release	Beginning	Beginning	Beginning
Planning	Not require	Yes	Yes	Yes
Documentation	Not necessary	Yes	Yes	Yes
Handle large project	Not necessary	Yes	Not necessary	Not necessary
User involvement	At beginning only	High	Intermediate	At beginning only
Returning to early phase	Yes	Yes	Yes	No
Cost for Project Development	Low	High	Low	Low
Modifications after Project Completion	Easy	Easy	Easy	Difficult
Average Project Completion Time	Long	Short	Long	Long
Testing	After coding	After each iteration	After each iteration	After coding
Risk	low	Medium to high	low	High
Maintenance	Easy	Hard	Easy	Easy
Reuse	Yes	Up to some extent	Up to some extent	Up to some extent
Framework	Linear	Iterative and Linear	Iterative and Linear	Linear

SQA can be defined as an ongoing method which can be used for understanding SDLC (Software development life cycle) and generally aims to recognize the fact that the given software has been designed in such a way that it can meet the specific measures of quality and aims in the actual development of software which is of high quality.

Hossain (2018) explains that software permeates our way of life and software system failures will result in serious consequences in safety-critical systems similarly as in traditional information systems within A business.

In reality, quality in software development correlates directly to answering the client functional and non-functional requirements and eliminates or reduce any type of software errors through tests (Morgan and Habling, 2010) and includes various activities similar to quality control, quality management,

quality standards, quality planning, process standardization and improvement (Sowunmi et. al 2016).

Arpia et al. (2015) suggest that a good software should consider being developed with these four main factors:

1. Flexibility– The ability to satisfy a wide variety of measurements for applications with the ability to research and develop in a rapid and cost-effective outcome.
2. Reusability– Components should be reused in new models to achieve minor code alterations to achieve a lower probability for software errors.

• Maintainability- The code should have the ability to be improved and fixed right after it is released by using mechanisms that will indicate performances, assessments and the tracing of actual modifications.

1. Portability – The code should be decoupled as much as possible to allow a smooth transitioning from one environment to another.

Dick and Abrham (2005) discuss about how to measure the quality through models such as the Capability Maturity Model (CMM) which provides an indication about the quality of the software and help to optimize internal processes within the organization.

Mohapatra (2010) explains that the first essential stage would be to collect requirements. He suggests that they should be identified before actually building a software product. Without a clear definition of user requirements that describe capabilities (e.g. features) that solve a real-world problem for the stakeholders the software and the efforts spent on it will go to waste.

We will identify the user requirements through methods such as interviews, observations and surveys will be used for gathering requirements (Costain and McKenna 2011).

The next stage would be to design a Use Case Diagram documents by using tools such as a UML tool to provide graphical information on how the program should function to assure that it meets the requirements through either OO techniques or plain text-based diagrams.

Some of the techniques which can be used for understanding the method so that the product has achieved a benchmark within the given organisation are internal, best practice and lastly competitive.

1. Internal Benchmarking: It generally requires various kinds of department and process with the given organization. This particular type of benching comes up of some of the advantages in the given data. The comparison of given data is not that much easy because it comes up with large number of factors which does not need to be closely checked. The department of similar structure and organization structure is considered to be same like management. This particular similarity of data is considered to be very much quick and easy in given nature. The biggest drawback of the internal benchmarking is that it is unable to attain benchmark in various improvisation.
2. Competitive: The various practices of benchmarking are all about understanding the leadership in the whole method of argument of benchmark. This look for various kind of search which is seen in various kind of sector which aims to provide opportunity which is needed for development of strategies in the given throughout. By the help of similar kind of bench marking it is seen that the given project needs to focus on the needs to the organization. In many situations it seen that seen that benchmarking understand the need of marketing standard. In some of cases it seen that this type of benchmarking emphasizes on meeting certain number of standards of the given project.

• Best practice benchmarking: It emphasize on finding some of leaders which can be used for being processed on being benchmark. It is encountered in some of industry sectors and some location of geographic which aims in providing certain number of developments which takes place due to various kinds of strategies in the given industry.

Some of the software testing strategy which is needed for understanding and required for some of quality of assurance are:

1. Unit Testing– Performed at a very early stage by the developers, once the developer assures that the code function as required he will release it.
2. Whitebox Testing - A testing methodology that focuses on program structures that could be problematic and crush, they include dataflow testing, program slicing and mutation testing.

• BlackBox Testing -This test will usually be conducted under the assumption that no prior knowledge of the detailed structure was given to the testers. Blackbox will use test methods such as functional testing where we will check to see if the software functions as specified as part of the user acceptance tests (where inputs and outputs are verified).
  Another example of a test will be random testing where we will generate random and independent inputs and compare the results (outputs) to assure reliability.

1. Graphical User Interface –A visual testing where we verify the users interaction with the system, in here we could verify the actual functionality of a button or an icon that the user will try to click on and to the behaviour of the system. We will also verify the delays and intuitive reactions by the users.

Lucid chart is a very efficient commercial service that can be accessed through web and allows the users to collaborate in real time. The users can create organizational charts, UML diagrams, website frameworks, flow charts, database models and many more in this web-based tool. The Lucid Chart tools is based on HTML5 and JavaScript technology and is supported by all the common browsers like Mozilla, Google Chrome, Safari, Internet Explorer and more (Vician and Pierce 2018).

The huge collection of industry standard shape libraries makes the tool extremely effective. Customization is also done standardized way in Lucid Chart. The tool allows the users to upload SVGs so that they can make their own shapes. The present shapes in the tool are not constant to its visual. The user can alter the shapes so that he/she can properly visualize the model. This prominent, online chart programming is versatile to organization’s work processes, which implies you don't need to adjust the manner in which you work to consolidate Lucidchart to organization’s framework (Bailey et al. 2017).

Iterative Models in SDLC

Adding to Lucidchart's vaunted convenience is its consistent incorporations with a significant number of the world broadly utilized and similarly famous business frameworks and applications, for example, Google Apps, Google Drive, JIVE, Atlassian, and that's only the tip of the iceberg. Besides making appealing stream graphs and charts, sending out them in different standard record arrangements or distributing them to a few online report watcher is not an issue (Suta and Selander 2017).

The Tool features capabilities like real-time collaboration and drag-drop interface. The iPad also supports lucid chart through iPad application that is optimized to this tool’s framework. The tool is based on the cloud environment therefore, there is no need to download and install the software in a particular system. The tool saves the works and projects in cloud itself and retrieves the data based on the login credentials (Podagrosi 2017). Various users can login with same credentials so that many users can collaborate on a single document.

The tool is very efficient for collaboration as it provide in-editor chat, video chat and many more. The users can comment on the ongoing processes using in-editor chat and commenting features. The video conference has made it possible to communicate most significantly while a project is running (Jadeja et al. 2014).  This not only allows the users to understand each other’s perspective properly but allows to capture the right requirements for the project.

The tool become more significant when the users use the document publication feature. This allows the users to share their work with anyone through mail and link. The owners of the project or higher authorities may need to see only the final outcome (Dirix, Le Pallec and Muller 2014). Lucid chart creates PDF, jpg and PNG so that management or owners can see the final design.

The Lucid Chart has been able to allow the users to convey ideas, prepare and visualize structures, generating project plans along with maps has been a practice since the profession business overtook by larger enterprises. The tool lets the users generate reliable and powerful models and charts in a very efficient way that allows more user satisfaction while using this cloud-based tools (Boyd et al. 2017). Every business is unique, and can require a particular Mind Mapping Software arrangement that will be changed in accordance with their business measure, sort of clients and staff and even specific industry they bolster. It's not savvy to rely on finding a flawless administrations that will work for every business regardless of what their experience is (Hsu et al. 2017).

It might be a smart thought to peruse a couple of Lucidchart surveys first and still, at the end of the day you should remember what the product assumed improve the situation organization’s organization and organization’s staff. Do you require a simple and natural application with just basic highlights? Will you truly utilize the propelled functionalities required by professionals and expansive projects? Are there a particular highlights that are particularly helpful for the business you work in? On the off chance that you put forth these inquiries it will be significantly simpler to find a strong programming that will coordinate organization’s financial plan.

Choosing the Right Development Approach

Usages

The user will register if he/she is not registered in and then login to the tool. The tools shows a lot of options such as flow chart, ERD, blank and more. The user select one these options and a new page will open with all the objects related to that diagram. The user can drag and drop the objects in the screen and customize them to create a perfect model.

Lucidchart is a definitive graphing tool that supplies organizations and expert people with an electronic, easy to use flowchart stage stacked with numerous highlights and abilities to assist them with their outlining needs. Utilized by in excess of 6 million clients everywhere throughout the world, Lucidchart empowers clients to rapidly draw wireframes, flowchart, business graphs, mind maps, UML, and that's just the beginning (Price 2016). Lucidchart is a perfect graph instrument for conceptualizing and overseeing projects. The instrument additionally works easily with well-known web applications and business frameworks, including Google Apps. Lucidchart is intuitive to the point that it is utilized in numerous enterprises, including building, website composition and advancement, and business areas.

Advantages: The advantages of the software are as following.

1. The software is extremely easy to use
2. The tool is also very flexible

• The design of the tool is very simple and activity complexity is low

1. Diagrams are associated with online repository

Disadvantages: The disadvantages of the tool are as following.

1. Document features performance is poor
2. If many objects are on the screen then it becomes hard to manage and organize them

• There is no custom theme in Lucid Chart

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