Rational Unified Process
Rational Unified Process (RUP) is a project methodology where the life cycle of a project is divided into four phases: Inception, Elaboration, Construction and Transition. Each of these phases has a core milestone that must be met before moving onto the next phase.
During the inception phase, our goal is to identify the customer’s requirements and specify the project scope. Throughout the inception phase, we work closely with our customer to ensure that no requirements have been missed, analysing and prioritising what they need. This phase is documented by the production of: Business case, requirements spreadsheet, defined roles and responsibilities, an agreed meetings schedule and user acceptance tests.
During the elaboration phase, we delve into the business requirements in more detail. Use cases are used to explore the requirements. These use cases are then applied to drive the solution design. This phase is documented by the production of the following artefacts: HLD (High Level Design) and TOM (Target Operating Model), and execution plan, use cases, interface catalogue, designs (both wireframes and sketch), and functional and integration tests.
During the construction phase, the development takes place. At the end of the construction phase, the solution is ready for functional and integration testing, as defined in the elaboration phase. The artefacts created during this phase are the actual software that makes up the solution along with the unit tests.
During the transition phase, the solution is put through functional, integration and user acceptance testing and includes a stabilisation period following a soft launch, where systems and customer feedback are monitored to identify any issues. In addition, weekly or twice-weekly triage calls are conducted to go through tickets raised and prioritise and assign bugs so they can be fixed allowing for a rapid response to any issues raised.
Once the full range of testing is complete and signed off by our customer and the stabilisation period is complete, the solution is ready for release into production.
