How to Fail with the Rational Unified Process: Seven Steps to Pain and Suffering

The Rational Unified Process provides a valuable framework for approaching the business of developing software. As a framework, however, it must be adapted to the needs of each project team and their circumstances; it is intended to be applied in a light and agile style, and not adopted as a one-size-fits-all process. This article shares a number of common pitfalls experienced by teams attempting to adapt the Rational Unified Process to their needs, presented with a little tongue-in-cheek. The Rational Unified Process (RUP) [1] [2] has emerged as a popular de facto standard modern software development process—we feel with good reason. It combines recognized best practices such as adaptive, iterative, and risk-driven development; has been developed by world-class leaders with experience in both small and large systems development; is flexible in its application and extension; and has been coherently documented in both print and the online RUP product. Yet, there are factors inhibiting the successful adoption of the RUP, leading to far less than optimal results. There are patterns in these failures if you wish to learn from them; to that end, if your goal is spectacular failure with the RUP, we recommend the following steps. Step 1: Superimpose “Waterfall” Thinking Does your development process look something like this? 1. Try to define and stabilize most of the requirements; sign-off on them. 2. Do detailed design, based on the requirements. 3. Implement, based on the design. 4. Integration, system testing, and deployment.