Rational Unified Process, The: An Introduction

The Rational Unified Process is a software engineering process developed and marketed by Rational Software. It is a disciplined approach to assigning and managing tasks and responsibilities in a development organization. The goal of this process is to produce, within a predictable schedule and budget, high-quality software that meets the needs of its end users. The Rational Unified Process captures many of the best practices in modern software development and presents them in a tailorable form that is suitable for a wide range of projects and organizations. The Rational Unified Process delivers these best practices to the project team online in a detailed, practical form. This book provides an introduction to the concepts, structure, contents, and motivation of the Rational Unified Process. Goals of This Book In this book, you will learn what the Rational Unified Process is and what it is not; master the vocabulary of the Rational Unified Process and understand its structure; develop an appreciation for the best practices that we have synthesized in this process; and understand how the Rational Unified Process can give you the guidance you need for your specific responsibility in a project. This book is an integral part of the Rational Unified Process, but it is not the complete Rational Unified Process. Rather, it is a small subset. In the full Rational Unified Process you will find the detailed guidance needed to carry out your work. The full Rational Unified Process product - the online knowledge base - can be obtained from Rational Software. This book makes numerous references to the Unified Modeling Language (UML), but it is not an introduction to the UML.That is the focus of two other books: The Unified Modeling Language User Guide and The Unified Modeling Language Reference Manual. This introductory book speaks about modeling and object-oriented techniques, but it is not a design method, and it does not teach you how to model. Detailed steps and guidance on the various techniques that are embedded in the Rational Unified Process can be found only in the process product. Several chapters of this book discuss project management issues. They describe aspects of planning an iterative development, managing risks, and so on. This book, however, is by no means a complete manual on project management and software economics. For more information, we refer you to the book Software Project Management: A Unified Framework. The Rational Unified Process is a specific and detailed instance of a more generic process described in the textbook The Unified Software Development Process. Who Should Read This Book? The Rational Unified Process, An Introduction, Second Edition is written for a wide range of people involved in software development: project managers, developers, quality engineers, process engineers, method specialists, system engineers, and analysts. This book is relevant especially to members of an organization that has adopted the Rational Unified Process or is about to adopt it. It is likely that an organization will tailor the Rational Unified Process to suit its needs, but the core process described in this book should remain the common denominator across all instances of the Rational Unified Process. This book will be a useful companion to students taking one of the many professional education courses delivered by Rational Software and its partners in industry and academia. It provides a general context for the specific topics covered by the course. This book assumes that you have a basic understanding of software development. It does not require specific knowledge of a programming language, of an object-oriented method, or of the Unified Modeling Language. Starting Page 1 Table of Content 2 Front Matter 6 Preface 8 GOALS OF THIS BOOK 9 WHO SHOULD READ THIS BOOK? 10 HOW TO USE THIS BOOK 11 ORGANIZATION AND SPECIAL FEATURES 12 FOR MORE INFORMATION 14 SECOND EDITION 15 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS 16 Chapter 1. Software Development Best Practices 18 THE VALUE OF SOFTWARE 19 SYMPTOMS AND ROOT CAUSES OF SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT PROBLEMS 20 SOFTWARE BEST PRACTICES 22 DEVELOP SOFTWARE ITERATIVELY 23 MANAGE REQUIREMENTS 25 USE COMPONENT-BASED ARCHITECTURES 26 VISUALLY MODEL SOFTWARE 28 CONTINUOUSLY VERIFY SOFTWARE QUALITY 30 CONTROL CHANGES TO SOFTWARE 32 THE RATIONAL UNIFIED PROCESS 33 SUMMARY 34 Chapter 2. The Rational Unified Process 35 WHAT IS THE RATIONAL UNIFIED PROCESS? 36 THE RATIONAL UNIFIED PROCESS AS AS A PRODUCT 37 PROCESS STRUCTURE: TWO DIMENSIONS 41 SOFTWARE BEST PRACTICES IN THE RATIONAL UNIFIED PROCESS 42 OTHER KEY FEATURES OF THE RATIONAL UNIFIED PROCESS 47 A BRIEF HISTORY OF THE RATIONAL UNIFIED PROCESS 49 SUMMARY 51 Chapter 3. Static Structure: Process Description 52 A MODEL OF THE RATIONAL UNIFIED PROCESS 53 WORKERS 55 ACTIVITIES 57 ARTIFACTS 59 WORKFLOWS 63 ADDITIONAL PROCESS ELEMENTS 66 A PROCESS FRAMEWORK 69 SUMMARY 70 Chapter 4. Dynamic Structure: Iterative Development 71 THE SEQUENTIAL PROCESS 72 OVERCOMING DIFFICULTIES: ITERATE! 78 GAINING CONTROL: PHASES AND MILESTONES 80 A SHIFTING FOCUS ACROSS THE CYCLE 83 PHASES REVISITED 85 BENEFITS OF AN ITERATIVE APPROACH 94 SUMMARY 97 Chapter 5. An Architecture-centric Process 98 THE IMPORTANCE OF MODELS 99 ARCHITECTURE 100 THE IMPORTANCE OF ARCHITECTURE 101 A DEFINITION OF ARCHITECTURE 103 ARCHITECTURE REPRESENTATION 104 AN ARCHITECTURE-CENTRIC PROCESS 109 THE PURPOSE OF ARCHITECTURE 110 COMPONENT-BASED DEVELOPMENT 112 OTHER ARCHITECTURAL CONCEPTS 114 SUMMARY 116 Chapter 6. A Use-Case-Driven Process 117 DEFINITIONS 118 IDENTIFYING USE CASES 123 EVOLVING USE CASES 124 ORGANIZING USE CASES 125 USE CASES IN THE PROCESS 127 SUMMARY 129 Chapter 7. The Project Management Workflow 130 PURPOSE 131 PLANNING AN ITERATIVE PROJECT 132 THE CONCEPT OF RISK 135 THE CONCEPT OF METRICS 137 WHAT IS A METRIC? 139 WORKERS AND ARTIFACTS 140 WORKFLOW 142 BUILDING AN ITERATION PLAN 150 SUMMARY 155 Chapter 8. The Business Modeling Workflow 156 PURPOSE 157 WHY BUSINESS MODELING? 158 USING SOFTWARE ENGINEERING TECHNIQUES FOR BUSINESS MODELING 160 BUSINESS MODELING SCENARIOS 162 WORKERS AND ARTIFACTS 164 WORKFLOW 166 FROM THE BUSINESS MODELS TO THE SYSTEMS 169 MODELING THE SOFTWARE DEVELOPMENT BUSINESS 174 TOOL SUPPORT 175 SUMMARY 176 Chapter 9. The Requirements Workflow 177 PURPOSE 178 WHAT IS A REQUIREMENT? 179 TYPES OF REQUIREMENTS 181 CAPTURING AND MANAGING REQUIREMENTS 183 DESIGNING A USER-CENTERED INTERFACE 185 REQUIREMENTS WORKFLOW 186 WORKERS IN REQUIREMENTS 188 ARTIFACTS USED IN REQUIREMENTS 190 TOOL SUPPORT 192 SUMMARY 193 Chapter 10. The Analysis and Design Workflow 194 PURPOSE 195 ANALYSIS VERSUS DESIGN 196 HOW FAR MUST DESIGN GO? 197 WORKERS AND ARTIFACTS 198 THE DESIGN MODEL 200 THE ANALYSIS MODEL 201 THE ROLE OF INTERFACES 202 ARTIFACTS FOR REAL-TIME SYSTEMS 203 COMPONENT-BASED DESIGN 204 WORKFLOW 205 TOOL SUPPORT 210 SUMMARY 211 Chapter 11. The Implementation Workflow 212 PURPOSE 213 BUILDS 214 INTEGRATION 215 PROTOTYPES 216 WORKERS AND ARTIFACTS 218 WORKFLOW 220 TOOL SUPPORT 223 SUMMARY 224 Chapter 12. The Test Workflow 225 PURPOSE 226 QUALITY 227 TESTING IN THE ITERATIVE LIFECYCLE 228 DIMENSIONS OF TESTING 229 THE TEST MODEL 233 WORKERS AND ARTIFACTS 235 WORKFLOW 238 TOOL SUPPORT 242 SUMMARY 243 Chapter 13. The Configuration and Change Management Workflow 244 PURPOSE 245 THE CCM CUBE 246 WORKERS AND ARTIFACTS 251 WORKFLOW 253 TOOL SUPPORT 256 SUMMARY 257 Chapter 14. The Environment Workflow 258 PURPOSE 259 WORKERS AND ARTIFACTS 260 WORKFLOW 262 SUMMARY 265 Chapter 15. The Deployment Workflow 266 PURPOSE 267 WORKERS AND ARTIFACTS 269 WORKFLOW 271 SUMMARY 275 Chapter 16. Typical Iteration Plans 276 PURPOSE 277 DEFINING THE PRODUCT VISION AND THE BUSINESS CASE 278 BUILDING AN ARCHITECTURAL PROTOTYPE 280 IMPLEMENTING THE SYSTEM 283 SUMMARY 286 Chapter 17. Configuring and Implementing the Rational Unified Process 287 INTRODUCTION 288 THE EFFECT OF IMPLEMENTING A PROCESS 289 IMPLEMENTING THE RATIONAL UNIFIED PROCESS STEP BY STEP 291 CONFIGURING THE PROCESS 297 IMPLEMENTING A PROCESS IS A PROJECT 299 SUMMARY 301 Appendix A. Summary of Workers 302 Appendix B. Summary of Artifacts 306 Business Modeling Artifact Set 307 Requirements Artifact Set 308 Analysis and Design Artifact Set 309 Implementation Artifact Set 310 Test Artifact Set 311 Deployment Artifact Set 312 Configuration and Change Management Artifact Set 313 Project Management Artifact Set 314 Environment Artifact Set 315 Appendix Acronyms 316 Appendix Glossary 317 Glossary 318 Appendix Bibliography 329 The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is a saleable product from Rational/IBM.The RUP unifes the entire software development team and seeks to optimizethe productivity of each and every team member by putting the collectiveexperience derived from thousands of development projects and many industryleaders at the user's fingertips. It is a very popular product, and this bookrepresents the most thorough documentation for the latest version of theproduct (RUP v2003), which was released in May of 2003. Annotation Reflects all of the changes that were integrated into RUP v2003-the latest version of the very popular produc t Learn the key concepts, fundamentals of structure, integral content, and motivation behind the RUP Covers all phases of the software development lifecycle -from concept, to delivery, to revision Provides a concise introduction to IBM's Web-enabled software engineering process. This book describes the concepts, structure, content, and motivation that are central to the Rational Unified Process (RUP). It provides detailed and practical guidance through various phases of the software development life cycle.