Agile RUP: Taming the Rational Unified Process

Abstract

The Rational Unified Processâ (RUP) is the de facto iterative software development process in use today. But it is huge (over 3,200 files), prescriptive, and generic rather than concise, agile, and specific. Organizations moving to RUP are often confused about how to apply it to their culture, unsure how much of it to adopt, and wary of how they can adapt it to their specific software projects. This chapter starts with a brief summary of the traditional waterfall development process, then offers an overview of RUP, its philosophy and distinctive features. Then the general philosophy of agile development is discussed. The body of the chapter defines a small set of activities that have been successfully applied in commercial “Agile” RUP projects by the author. The chapter then discusses how some of the major stakeholder groups on a software project are affected by moving to an agile process.