Software process options

Rational Unified Process (RUP):

• An iterative, requirements-driven, architecture-centric approach to software development;
• particularly applicable to larger software development teams working on large projects; and
• consists of four phases:
  • inception: analysis of business context, success and risk factors, constraints and financial forecast. The result: project plan and project description.
  • elaboration: problem domain analysis, basic architecture. The result: a development plan for the overall project.
  • construction: development itself, coding. The result: first external release of the software.
  • transition: moving to the end user, training end users and maintainers, beta testing of the system, final adjustments based on user feedback, usability or installation issues. The result: completed software product ready for release.

Agile/XP-type process:

• lowers the cost of change
• suitable for
  • projects involving new or prototype technology, where the requirements change rapidly, or some development is required to discover unforeseen implementation problems.
  • research projects, where the resulting work is not the software product itself, but domain knowledge.
• Entertains the following five basic values:
  • Communication: collaboration of users and programmers as opposed to documentation from formal software development methodologies.
  • Simplicity: start with a simple solution and refactor it as needed.
  • Feedback: from the system, from the customer, from the team.
  • Courage: enables developers to feel comfortable refactoring their code. Implies reviewing the existing system and modifying it so that the future changes may be implemented more easily.
  • Respect: among team members for each other and for their work.
• Is based on the following four basic activities:
  • listening
  • designing
  • coding
  • testing

RUP is similar in concept to Extreme Programming in that the development plan is updated throughout the process, so only what is useful and required is produced.

Customer-specific process

Your unique requirements are combined with our technical expertise and knowledge resulting in a specific software process that satisfies your specific situation.