Rational Unified Process

Introducing the Rational Unified Process

What Is the Rational Unified Process?

The RUP?The Approach

The RUP?A Well-Defined Software Engineering Process

The RUP?A Customizable Process Product

Conclusion
 Rational Unified Process
What Is the Rational Unified Process?
When you ask this question, you typically get different
answers, depending on whom you ask and the context
of your question. What makes matters confusing is
that the Rational Unified Process, or the RUP, actually
denotes three very different things:
 Rational Unified Process
What Is the Rational Unified Process?

1. The RUP is a software development approach that

is iterative, architecture-centric, and use-case-driven.
It is described in a variety of whitepapers and books.
The most comprehensive information can be found in
the RUP product itself, which contains detailed
guidelines, examples, and templates covering the full
software lifecycle.
 Rational Unified Process
What Is the Rational Unified Process?

2. The RUP is a well-defined and well-structured

software engineering process. It clearly defines who
is responsible for what, how things are done, and
when to do them. The RUP also provides a well-
defined structure for the lifecycle of a RUP project,
clearly articulating essential milestones and decision
points.
 Rational Unified Process
What Is the Rational Unified Process?

3. The RUP is also a process product that provides you with a

customizable process framework for software engineering..
 Rational Unified Process
The RUP—The Approach
In this section we discuss the essential principles
the RUP uses to facilitate successful software
development, as well as the keystone
iterative approach to applying those principles.
The Spirit of the RUP: Guidelines
for Success
 Attack Major Risks Early and
Continuously. , or They Will Attack You
For example, the risks may look as
follows:
 Add the following actions to address
the earlier-identified risks:
• Risk 1: As the use cases related to Department X
are developed, complement them with a user-
interface (UI) prototype.
• Set up a meeting with Department X, and walk
them through each use case, using the UI
prototype as a storyboard.
• Get a formal sign-off on the requirements.
• Throughout the project, keep Department X in
the loop on progress, and provide them with
early prototypes and alpha releases.
 Add the following actions to address
the earlier-identified risks:
• Risk 2: Have a "tiger team" with one or two
skilled developers build an actual prototype
that shows how to integrate with legacy system
Y.
• The integration may be a throw-away, but the
prototype should prove that you actually can
integrate with the legacy system.
• Throughout the project, ensure appropriate
testing of the integration with legacy system Y.
Add the following actions to address
the earlier-identified risks:

Risk 3: Send a couple of people for training on

Microsoft .NET and Rational Rose, respectively,
and find the budget to bring in a Rational Rose
mentor two days per week for the first three
weeks of the Elaboration phase. Recruit a team
member with an understanding of the .NET
platform.
Risk 4: ...And so on.
 Summary
• The RUP provides a structured approach to
addressing top risks early, which decreases
overall costs and allows you to make earlier,
more realistic, and more accurate estimations
of how much time it will take to complete the
project.
• Remember that risk management is a dynamic
and ongoing process.
Ensure That You Deliver Value to Your
Customer
 Summary
• Use cases make it easy to document functional user
requirements and to help all stakeholders
understand the capabilities that are to be delivered.
• More essentially, use cases allow you to work
closely to the requirements when doing design,
implementation, and testing, thereby ensuring that
you not only document, but also deliver, the user
requirements.
• Combined with iterative development, they help
ensure that you deliver customer value.
Stay Focused on Executable Software
 Summary
• Working software is the best indicator of true
progress. When assessing progress, as much as
possible, look at what code is up and running and
which test cases have been properly executed.
• A strong focus on working software also enables
you to minimize overhead by producing only
those artifacts that add more value to your
project than they cost to produce.
Accommodate Change Early in the Project

Cost of change to the business solution.

Change to the business solution involves major
rework of requirements to address a different set
of users or user needs. There is a fair amount of
flexibility in making this type of modification
during the Inception phase, but costs escalate as
you move into the Elaboration phase. This is why
you force an agreement on the vision for the
system in Inception.
Accommodate Change Early in the Project

Cost of change to the architecture.

When following the RUP, you can make fairly
significant architectural changes at low cost
until the end of Elaboration. After that,
significant architectural changes become
increasingly costly, which is why the
architecture must be baselined at the end of
Elaboration.
Accommodate Change Early in the Project

Cost of change to the design and implementation.

Because of the component-based approach, these
types of changes are typically localized and can
hence be made at fairly low cost throughout the
Construction phase. These types of changes are,
however, increasingly expensive in the Transition
phase, which is why you typically introduce
"feature freeze" at the end of
Construction.
Accommodate Change Early in the Project

Cost of change to the scope.

The cost of cutting scope—and hence
postponing features to the next release—is
relatively inexpensive throughout the project,
if done within limits. Scope cutting is greatly
facilitated by iterative development; project
managers should use it as a key tool to ensure
on-time project delivery.
Accommodate Change Early in the Project
Accommodate Change Early in the Project
 Summary

• The cost of change increases the further you

are into a project, and different types of
changes have different cost profiles.
• The RUP's phases have been set up to
minimize overall cost of change, while
maximizing the ability to allow for change.
Baseline an Executable
Architecture Early On
 Summary
The architecture is the system's skeleton
structure. By designing, implementing, and
testing the architecture early in the project, you
address major risks and make it easier to scale up
the team and to introduce less-experienced team
members. Finally, since the architecture defines
the system's building blocks or components, it
enables you to more accurately assess the effort
needed to complete the project.
Build Your System with Components
Build Your System with Components
Work Together as One Team
Make Quality a Way of Life, Not an Afterthought