Rational Unified Process is the best guide for assigning roles and responsibilities in a development organization, and creating high-quality software that meets users’ needs. It was originally created by Rational Software Corporation, which IBM purchased in 2003. RUP’s incredible success has led many organizations around the world to realize how important a well-defined, well-documented process for software development. This method is most commonly used for large software development projects. However, many project managers believe that RUP is not suitable for smaller projects that don’t require a lot of resources. There are many small projects that have benefited greatly by incorporating RUP in their organization. TAP University (Technology as Promised), an online learning management system, is one example. Their goal was to expand face-to-face training as well as increase their online offerings for students, corporate customers, and the public. Even though it was a small project the implementation of RUP produced remarkable results. It provided guidance to the company for the Construction stage, which is the third and most important stage of Rational Unified Process (RUP).
The RUP creates a processed product. This allows the entire team to use the same language when developing software. This allows the entire team to work together in the same language to develop software.
Six fundamental best practices make RUP applicable to a wide variety of projects around the world.
Manage requirements – How to organize and keep track functionality requirement, documents and tradeoffs, as well as business decisions and business needs
Component-based architecture is a way to organize the system architecture into components that can be reused in future projects.
Visually model software – It shows you how to create an image model of a program to capture the behavior and structure of architecture and its components
Verify Software Quality – It allows you to evaluate and manage the quality of all activities in the software development process.
Software changes can be controlled – you have the ability to track, control and monitor changes that allow for continuous and successful development. It helps you create a secure environment by isolating it against changes. This allows your team to work together as a unit.
The structure of RUP
This approach identifies who is doing what, when and how. RUP can be described using four elements:Workers – the “Who” It defines the behavior, responsibilities and goals of all team members that are focused on one goal – to produce artifacts. RUP places the worker in a more important role, determining how individuals should behave.