Benefits of JAD sessions

If the above guidelines are followed closely, chances are, the JAD will be successful. A successful JAD session should provide these benefits:

Reduced system development time. In JAD, information can be obtained and validated in a shorter time frame by involving all participants (or at least a representative set of participants) who have a stake in the outcome of the session. JAD eliminates process delays and has been shown to reduce application development time between 20% to 50%.

Improved system quality and productivity. Much of the system’s quality depends on the requirements gathered. JAD involves users in the development life cycle, lets users define their requirements, thus ensures that the system developed satisfies the actual activities of the business. JAD is quoted the best method for collecting requirements from the users, customers, or customer advocates.

Reduced system cost. Much of the system development cost is in terms of man-hours of both system developers and business users involved. Reduced development time reduces the labor cost for developers, as well as users. Important process like requirement gathering requires the involvement and commitment of business area experts. The cost of taking them away from their daily operation is very high. JAD can reduce the involvement time of these business experts and hence reduce the cost further. Cost is also reduced by catching errors, misunderstandings and mistakes early in the development phrase. Studies have found that a majority of system errors result from early analysis errors, and the earlier these errors are corrected, the much less they will cost. The JAD sessions let designers and users work together in the very early of the development cycle, defining the scope, requirements of projects, resolving conflicts among different user groups. It put much efforts early in the life cycle in order to improve the quality and increase productivity and to reduce cost.

Enhanced communication and relationship between business end-users and IT personnel.

Cultivate ownership, easier acceptance (buy-in) and stronger commitment by users. The involvement of business end-users is no longer on advisory or consultation spectrum. It is the participation and contribution in the project development life-cycle. The more users contribute to the system, the easier for them to accept it and commit to it.

Reduced function creep. It was cited by Gary Anthes to be one of the best ways to reduce function creep, most of which results from poor initial requirements.

Enhanced education for participants and observers. By participating in JAD and be the medium between other users and IT, the business end-users will be kept fully informed about the progress of the system development.

Under the trends of emphasis on group work, quality and productivity, and attention shift from technology to business, the most frequently cited success indicators for applications were: timely delivery, achievement of business objectives, and building positive communications and relationships with customers. In the meantime, people are expecting higher productivity. Conducted properly, JAD can improvement all of these areas, and contribute greatly to development of a successful system.

http://www.umsl.edu