Most of us have worked on projects that were not well organized and the requirements gathering process dragged on for months, commonly referred to as "analysis paralysis".  Joint Application Development (JAD) sessions are a set of intense meetings held off-site where executives, developers, and end-users define the exact requirements needed by a software solution.  By holding JAD sessions, your team can more quickly define requirements, get executive buy-in, eliminate irrelevant requirements and reduce political jockeying between team members.

Below are the keys to successful JAD Sessions:

1. Invite the Right People - Limit JAD sessions to 10 people or less.  Of the 10 people, you must have a session leader, an executive sponsor, an end-user representative, a developer, a scribe, and specialists:
   
   A) The session leader is responsible for organizing, planning and managing the meeting (handling conflicts, political struggles, etc). 
   
   B) The executive sponsor is the person responsible for approving the project financing and giving final approval to go forward.
   
   C) The end-user representative is responsible for ensuring that the solution meets the needs of their business and is responsible for approving the approach. 
   
   D) The developer is the person responsible for guiding the technical solution and is responsible for prototypes.  They are also responsible for guiding the technical solution as to reusability and simplification of the technical requirements.
   
   E) The scribe is responsible for documenting decisions made and clarifying and tracking action items. 
   
   F) Specialists are needed from time-to-time to provide specific areas of expertise.  They are not needed at all meetings, they are called upon as required.
    

2. Hold Meetings Offsite - Effective JAD sessions are held offsite.  This ensures that attendees do not get pulled out of the meetings and that the entire team has committed their time to the requirements definition process.  The entire JAD session process should last no longer than 10 sessions, as the system should be fully defined within that number of sessions.
    

3. Create Prototypes - JAD sessions use prototyping extensively.  Creating prototypes for web-based solutions can be quickly done using Microsoft Front Page (http://www.microsoft.com/frontpage) and other tools.  To define workflow and how the screens work together, products like Robo Demo (http://www.robodemo.com) can help tremendously.  By creating prototypes, JAD members can quickly make decisions about the design and can quickly eliminate complex and irrelevant requirements.
    

4. Deliverables - Upon completion of the JAD sessions, your team should have a prototype of the system, a user-interface design, database schema, estimates and a budget.
    

5. Final Approval  - The final step in the JAD session is to obtain approval from the executive sponsor and the end-user representative.  The final approval should be evidenced by signing the deliverables documentation.
    

6. Example - Our team just finished a JAD session for the development of a Time Sheet system for one of our clients.  To view the Design Document that came out of the JAD session, go to http://www.pragmaticsw.com/newsletters/JADVIL0039.pdf.  It also contains a prototype, complete with movies that show the workflow of the system.  This specific JAD session lasted 3 sessions and was completed in 1 week.  Once the project was approved, we used Software Planner (http://www.SoftwarePlanner.com) to manage the project.