Dinosaur meets Archaeopteryx? or: Is there an alternative for Rational’s Unified Process?

Abstract

Since 1999, Rational's Unified Process (RUP) is being offered as a guideline for software projects using the Unified Modeling Language (UML). RUP has been advertised to be iterative, and incremental , use casedriven and architecture-centric. These claims are discussed while RUP core concepts like phase, iteration, discipline (formerly: workflow ) and milestone are reviewed in more detail. It turns out that the RUP constitutes a considerable step towards a broad dissemination of software process modelling ideas but some of the RUP definitions and structures lack clear structure and are too complex and overloaded for practical use.Among others, I see the following particular problems: (1) phases do still dominate the process and iteration structure, (2) the term "software architecture" is not clearly defined and its role is still underestimated, (3) RUP "disciplines" are a partly redundant concept complicating the process more than supporting it, (4) powerful and transparent structuring principles like recursion and orthogonality do not get the attention they deserve. As an alternative, our model for E volutionary, Object-oriented S oftware development (EOS) is contrasted with the RUP.

Softwareland Chronicles: A Software Development Meta-Process Proposal

“…Short afterwards there was a counter-attack; agile methodologies attacked processes by claiming that processes were fictional [24] and their only objective was to maintain their status quo by being normative in utopian development situations [25]; cheerful RUP was regarded as a dinosaur [26], and the lifecycle of classical development was attacked with claims like "lifecycle is harmful" [27].…”

Rational unified process for service oriented application in extreme programming

“…In [15] the authors continue this guideline, by analyzing further the business modeling artifacts, and presenting a way to set up a methodology that can incorporate procedural improvements to, thereby, enable organizations that adopt RUP to get a better ranking on the CMM scale. According to [16], RUP is much too complex and sophisticated to be capable of being implemented as a successful practice. It alleged that RUP does not frame in the best way the existing roles and that does not adequately involve the users during the transition phase.…”

eXRUP: A Hybrid Software Development Model for Small to Medium Scale Projects

“…RUP follows use case driven, architecture centric, incremental and iterative approach. However, RUP has following weaknesses which are highlighted by different other authors as well:  RUP is a complex methodology and it is difficult to learn and apply it correctly on all type of projects [27,28].  While developing software according to RUP, an expert who has already developed such type of projects is necessary in the team to get high quality software [28].…”