Guidelines: Process Tailoring Practices
Topics
As you sort through the many artifacts, activities, and roles in the Rational
Unified Process (RUP), you may ask yourself these questions:
- Do I need this one?
- How do I sort through all of these items to determine which ones I need
for my project?
- Isn't it obvious that the RUP is only for big projects?
The topic of tailoring addresses all of these questions.
A software project's purpose is to produce a product. A good process enables
the project to produce a product that meets the needs of its stakeholders, on
time and within budget. For
additional information, see artifact: Product.
The key to a good process is in tailoring it to be as simple as possible, following
a best practices approach.
The guidelines included here should be considered for tailoring a process.
More detailed guidelines are provided in Concepts:
RUP Tailoring and in Activity: Tailor
the Process for the Project..
A common problem for many projects is that they often focus heavily in one
particular area, to the extent that they get bogged down with the details of
that particular area before making sure that they have a good idea of what "key"
elements are involved in the whole process lifecycle of producing a quality
product.
It's usually better to address all key elements of a process in a lightweight
manner before focusing heavily on any one particular problem area.
Once the framework for a quality software process is in place, a project can
effectively focus on a particular area that has been identified as a major contributor
to their problems. This selection is based on identifying and prioritizing
risks to the project, and determining early mitigation strategies for those
identified risks.
Do not include activities and artifacts that cannot be clearly justified
The well-intentioned project manager or process engineer may have a large wish
list of nice-to-have metrics, controls, reports, and so on. However, activities
and artifacts cost time and money. Some of these costs, such as daily interaction
with the environment toolset, may or may not be visible, but simply get folded
into lower productivity on standard tasks.
You must distinguish critical process needs from the wish list and determine
whether the benefits outweigh the cost.
Shield your developers from the process
You probably have highly trained staff with valuable skills in designing, implementing,
and testing. Don't have them spend hours each week filling out forms, enhancing
documentation, or fighting with unwieldy tools. If these activities are required,
consider having them done by qualified support staff.
Minimize formal intermediate artifacts
The format of intermediate artifacts-those artifacts not intended for the
final product-is not as important as the activity and thought needed to
produce them. It doesn't matter what they look like, or what tools you use to
build them, provided they serve their purpose. As Dwight D. Eisenhower said,
"The plan is nothing; the planning is everything."
One trap that's easy to fall into is formalizing artifacts far too soon.
Early versions of artifacts often evolve quickly and remain fluid for some time
as different representations while their implications are explored. Formal documentation
can impede this process; you can waste a lot of time polishing an artifact that's
largely expendable. Hand-drawn diagrams and simple descriptions on index cards
are often sufficient in the early stages of an artifact and, for some projects,
may be all that's required.
An artifact may be tailored so it can be maintained in any form. For example,
the Vision document may be captured as a Web page, the Project Plan may be captured
as a Microsoft Project file, and the Risk List may be captured as a Rational
RequisitePro requirement type.
Generate when possible
Some projects spend a lot of time populating templates of formal documents
by manually cutting and pasting information. Instead, consider generating
required documents from the source, using tools such as Rational SoDA, or negotiate
a simpler way of providing the same information, such as using Rational Rose
Publisher to generate a Web-based design model.
In many cases, you can skip an artifact altogether because the information
is implicitly provided in the environment. For example, rather than generate
the section of the Requirements Management Plan that lists attributes of requirements
types, you may want to only provide the tailored Rational RequisitePro project
with the applicable requirements types and traceability, and then walk through
it with the interested parties. Another example is to provide a read-only version
of the Microsoft Project files to the interested parties, rather than duplicating
graphics into a separate Software Development Plan.
Use the Web
A useful artifact is one that communicates valuable information. This
information should be at the fingertips of those who need it. Web technology
is an excellent mechanism for this purpose. If the requirements, design, and
implementation are available on the Web, there's no need to generate large sets
of quickly obsolesced paper documentation.
Use integrated tools
Select tools that fit the process and tailor the process to fit the tools.
The desired results are an easy-to-use process and toolset. Integrated
tools generally provide greater consistency, and more informative metrics and
reports than tools that are not integrated.
Regularly revisit the process to refine and reduce its complexity. If your
staff isn't convinced that each step in the process provides added value for
the end product, then the process is probably broken.
Tailor while retaining best practices
The RUP encourages tailoring. However, tailoring is not a license to bypass
the process altogether. The essentials of the RUP are embodied in its
best practices. Follow the spirit of these best practices when tailoring the
activities and artifacts to fit your needs.
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