Department or Program Name
[SYSTEM/APPLICATION NAME]
Joint Application
Design (JAD) Session
Workbook
JAD SESSION
FACILITATOR’S GUIDE
TABLE OF CONTENTS
TABLE OF CONTENTS ......................................................................................................... 1
JOINT APPLICATION DESIGN SESSION SAMPLE AGENDA....................................................... 1
WHAT IS A JAD SESSION? ................................................................................................. 2
Meeting Ground Rules .............................................................................................................................. 2
Attendee Contact List ................................................................................................................................ 2
Design Sessions Deliverables List ............................................................................................................ 2
Design Considerations Checklist............................................................................................................... 3
PROJECT PROFILE ............................................................................................................. 5
SYSTEM DIAGRAMS ........................................................................................................... 6
ISSUES LIST ...................................................................................................................... 8
COMMUNICATION MATRIX ................................................................................................... 9
TRAINING PLAN MATRIX ................................................................................................... 10
SESSION NOTES .............................................................................................................. 11
FACILITATOR’S GUIDE
JAD SESSION
JOINT APPLICATION DESIGN SESSION SAMPLE AGENDA
[Project Name]
Joint Application Design
Working Session
Meeting
Purpose
Facilitator
Meeting Details
Agenda and Meeting Report
Date:
Time:
Location:
Attendees
 = present,  = planned absence, ○ = not present,  = conference call; use bold for names of Decision Makers
Advance Pre-reading Materials:
Meeting Topics
Reference
Led By
Time
Meeting Kickoff


Project Overview
Review Work Breakdown Structure
(WBS)

Design and Planning Brainstorming:
Review and recap issues and action
items:
Summarize and Close
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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JAD SESSION
WHAT IS A JAD SESSION?
The Joint Application Design session is designed to facilitate the basic project planning in a group
environment and fast track the identification and resolution of remaining issues. The JAD session
jumpstart the next phase of the effort by providing clear goals and agreement in a one meeting setting and
with all key players and stakeholders, allowing each department to focus on their issues understanding the
impacts to the entire program. Together, the group can define the full impact of decisions or actions,
agree to the final outcome, and approve steps required for the program and the project teams to identify
needs, assign resources, and address questions impacting multiple departments.
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Serves as an early form of detailed design and technical planning
Establishes clear communication and consensus
Helps the team pull different perspectives into a common understanding
Identifies what the customer and key stakeholders deem essential for success.
MEETING GROUND RULES
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Set cell phones to vibrate
Do not use laptops for e-mail during sessions
Participate actively throughout the sessions
Provide direct and honest feedback
Demonstrate mutual respect to all team members and differing points of view.
Ask questions if you don’t understand. No excuse for not knowing what is going on!
Provide sufficient background information when presenting or discussing a topic (i.e. issue,
problem, decision or acronyms).
We will keep this flowing and informal, but limit absences to scheduled breaks
We will be open and inquisitive – there is no bad question, and all team members have the right to
fully know and understand system processes.
We will be creative and flexible when looking at how we might accomplish our objectives.
We will be open to change.
We will apply the “10 minute” rule to any discussion that is not moving forward, and use parking
lots to track issues.
We will create a cooperative/supportive environment by finding ways to say “Yes”
We allow the person speaking to have the floor, no side conversations
IF YOU DON’T AGREE WITH ANYTHING, NOW IS THE TIME TO SPEAK!
ATTENDEE CONTACT LIST
Name
Deployment Teams
Phone
Location
REMOTE ATTENDEES
DESIGN SESSIONS DELIVERABLES LIST
These Design and Planning sessions have the specific goal of:
 Updating the project Issues/Action Items List
 Generating group approval of an architectural design and solution delivery plan
 Gaining agreement on an approach to deliver a Detailed Design Document (format and type to
be determined) that can be circulated for general review and approval and then be used to
guide functional teams through the migration process, by helpdesk groups to provide technical
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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JAD SESSION
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support, and by technology delivery teams in the product maintenance and production support
lifecycle.
Standardizing the group on the approach so each functional area can provide detailed
equipment, resource, and expense sizing estimates within 1 week of the sessions
Providing group inputs to Resource Requirements with Roles and Responsibilities
Providing group inputs to Project Schedule and Timeline
Providing group inputs to the Communications Plan (who should be made aware of what when
and how?)
Providing group inputs to Training Plan (who will need what training when and how?)
DESIGN CONSIDERATIONS CHECKLIST
This checklist captures common elements that should be present in any design. It is presented here to
stimulate thought, guide brainstorming, and to ensure the design being outlined contains all proper design
considerations:
General
Does the design support both product and project goals?
Is the design feasible from a technology, cost, and schedule standpoint?
Have known design risks been identified, analyzed, and planned for or mitigated?
Are the methodologies, notations, etc. used to create and capture the design appropriate?
If possible, were proven past designs reused?
Does the design support proceeding to the next development step?
Have proper fallback consideration been made?
Design Considerations
Does the design have conceptual integrity (i.e., does the whole design tie together)?
Can the design be implemented within technology and environmental constraints?
Does the design use standard techniques and avoid exotic, hard-to-understand elements?
Is the design unjustifiably complex?
Is the design lean (i.e., are all of its parts strictly necessary)?
Does the design create reusable components if appropriate?
Will the design be easy to port to another environment if appropriate?
Does the design allow for scalability?
Are all time-critical functions identified, and timing criteria specified for them?
Are the hardware environment completely defined, including engineering change levels and
constraints?
Are the pre-requisite and co-requisite software and firmware clearly identified, including
release levels and constraints?
Is each event/activity verifiable by testing, demonstration, review, or analysis?
Requirements Traceability
Does the design address all issues from the requirements?
Does the design add features or functionality, which was not specified by the requirements
(i.e., are all parts of the design traceable back to requirements)?
If appropriate, has requirements coverage been documented with a completed requirements
traceability matrix?
Completeness
Are all of the assumptions, constraints, design decisions, and dependencies documented?
Have all reasonable alternative designs been considered, including not automating some
processes in software?
Have all goals, tradeoffs, and decisions been described?
Has the Risk Plan been modified with any new risks posed by the design?
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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JAD SESSION
Have all interfacing systems been identified?
Are the error recovery and backup requirements completely defined?
Have the infrastructure e.g. backup, recovery, checkpoints been addressed?
Consistency
Is the design consistent with its upstream and downstream artifacts?
Does the design adequately address issues that were identified and deferred at previous
upstream levels?
Is the design consistent with related artifacts (i.e., other modules, designs, etc.)?
Is the design consistent with the development and operating environments?
Performance/Reliability
Are all performance attributes, assumptions, and constraints clearly defined?
If appropriate, are there justifications for design performance (i.e., prototyping critical areas or
reusing an existing design proven in the same context)?
Capacity Planning
Are all Service Level Agreements and objectives known and addressed?
Does the design improve productivity?
Is scalability development into the plan and is maintainable?
Is Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) controlled or reduced?
Maintainability
Does the design allow for ease of maintenance?
If reusable parts of other designs are being used, has their effect on design and integration
been stated?
Does the design resist erosion in the correctness of its content over time?
Compliance
Does the design follow all standards necessary for the system? (i.e., date standards)
Have legal/regulatory requirements been assessed and accounted for?
Security
Are all security considerations properly specified?
Modeling and Design Views
When appropriate, are there multiple, consistent, models and/or views that represent the
design (i.e., static vs. dynamic)?
Where there are multiple models of the software (i.e., static and dynamic) are those models
consistent with each other?
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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JAD SESSION
PROJECT PROFILE
Project Name
Project
Sponsor
Project Purpose/
Business Case
This project is to…. Enter project purpose
The expected project benefits include:
 Benefit – Enter project benefits
Likely Needed
Resources
Proposed source of funds (departmental or unknown): Enter proposed source
of funds
Project resources might include:
1. Internal Labor Resource (use $65/hour)
$000,000
2. External Labor Resources (consulting)
$000,000
3. Hardware
$000,000
4. Software
$000,000
5. Other
$000,000
$000,000
Project Scope
University Impact: Enter campus (Twin cities, all coordinate campuses, etc.)
Departmental Impact: Enter department
Functional Scope: Deliverable (New business process, new software,
purchase hardware, etc.)
Basic
Approach
How will this project be done?
Include the basic approach for this project.
Proposed Delivery
Date
Known or required dates:
Include any known or required project dates.
Possible Risks
Consider things that can go wrong and impacts to not doing the project:
 Risk – Enter project risks
Additional
Comments
Use this space for additional comments about this proposal (i.e., initial priority
recommendations, known dependencies with other projects, etc.)
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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JAD SESSION
FACILITATOR’S GUIDE
SYSTEM DIAGRAMS
AS IS Diagram:
TO BE Diagram:
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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FACILITATOR’S GUIDE
JAD SESSION
Draft Roadmap Outline:
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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FACILITATOR’S GUIDE
JAD SESSION
ISSUES LIST
[Project Name]
Project Name:
Project Manager:
Category
Issue
ID
Issue Name
Description of Issue
Project ID:
Last Updated:
Priority
(H/M/L)
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
Assigned
To
Date
Needed
Action
Taken
Page 8
Entered
Date
Entered
By
Status
Date
Closed
FACILITATOR’S GUIDE
JAD SESSION
COMMUNICATION MATRIX
Communications Goal:
Document
When
How
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Recipient
Project Definition Document
Project SOW
Project Overview Statement
Project Work Plan
Architecture
Work Breakdown Structure
Functional Design
Sizing Estimates
Budget
Communications Matrix
Project Schedule
Test/QA Plan
Change Requests
Status Reports
Implementation Plan
Training Plan
Lessons Learned
AP - For Approval
I - Informational
AR - As Required (indicates change)
UR - Upon Request
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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FACILITATOR’S GUIDE
JAD SESSION
TRAINING PLAN MATRIX
Training Goal and Purpose:
Training
Components
1
Budget
Target Audience
& Size
Message Content
Distribution Method
Timing
Location Requirements
Owner/s
Status1
Status: P = Pending; C = Complete; O = Open
Training Positioning Strategy Summary:
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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JAD SESSION
FACILITATOR’S GUIDE
SESSION NOTES
© 2012 Regents of the University of Minnesota. All rights reserved. Revised March 6, 2016
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