Identifying Suitable Projects For Rapid Development: Some Proposed Selection Criteria

The use of rapid development techniques allows building high quality systems in short timeframes while reducing project costs and adding flexibility to the development process so it can be easily adapted to meet customer needs in a volatile market. In order to obtain the benefits of implementing rapid development methods, the development organization and the processes utilized need to be congruent with rapid development methodologies and techniques. A problem encountered by product development organizations is how to identify which projects are suitable for the rapid development approach. An extensive academic research about the implementation of rapid development techniques in Systems Development Life Cycle (SDLC) processes resulted in the identification of selection criteria for the determination of project suitability for rapid development methods. The selection criteria identified by this research are essential elements that must be present in every rapid development environment in order to obtain the benefits of implementing rapid development techniques

Feasibility of a Rapid Systems Engineering Framework: An Exploratory Study

Systems Engineering (SE) has been traditionally viewed as an extremely rigorous approach for having resource intensive processes often perceived to involve bureaucratic decision making; therefore, deemed to be affordable only by large companies and government institutions. However, in recent years, the commercial industry is trying to leverage the benefits of SE by selecting the relevant aspects that apply to them and customising SE to a leaner and compressed version. This paper explores the suitability and the feasibility of rapid approaches and techniques to the existing SE processes. More specifically, this paper describes 22 techniques of rapid systems engineering (RSE) during the design and implementation processes, relevant to those processes and lessons learned. These techniques are applied to the 14 SE processes as illustrated by the SE standard - ISO 15288. An exploratory survey was developed by the authors based on the SE process activities as per ISO 15288 to evaluate application utilising a rapid approach in current projects from various industries. This paper provides conclusions to applying rapid techniques to the SE processes based on existing literature and the experiences of the projects surveyed. It concludes with a discussion of potential research projects for the evaluation of RSE