Joint Application Design (JAD) sessions are a series of structured meetings where users, managers, and analysts work together for system proposal. The goal is to define the system’s objectives and specifications in an environment where all stakeholders can collaborate.
The facilitator, often a neutral party, guides the group through the process, encourages participation, and ensures that all perspectives are heard. The attendees of the JAD sessions include the project team members, users, IT staff, and other stakeholders relevant to the project.
A JAD session is usually divided into different stages:
- Preparation: Before the JAD session begins, the facilitator needs to prepare an agenda, decide who should attend, determine the session’s objectives, and gather any preliminary data.
- Introduction: The session starts with an introduction where the facilitator explains the objectives and the methodology of the session.
- Discussion and Design: The group discusses the system’s requirements and design. The facilitator ensures everyone’s views are considered, and disagreements are resolved constructively.
- Review and Evaluation: The group reviews the system requirements and design that have been created, ensuring that they meet the objectives. They also evaluate the session, and suggest improvements for future sessions.
- Follow-up: After the session, the facilitator will produce a document summarizing the results of the session, and distribute it to all participants for review and confirmation.
JAD sessions are highly interactive and rely on discussion and consensus to define the system requirements and design. They can be very effective in bringing out requirements that may not have been evident at the start of the project, and in getting buy-in from all stakeholders.
