This article originally appeared in the December 2002 issue of The Rational Edge E-zine on-line magazine, copyright 2002-2003 IBM and Max Wideman.

The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is a rigorous software development process advocated by the Rational Software Corporation.

The downloadable PDF file of the paper on this site is the one prepared by the Rational Edge editorial staff with the special assistance of Ms Marlene Ellin.

Published here June, 2003.

Introduction | Problems with the Traditional Acquisition Process | Keeping It Simple
What Does Contracting Involve? | The Vocabulary of Acquistion | PART II

Introduction

The November 2001 issue of The Rational Edge contains a perceptive article by Giles Pitette called "Progressive Acquisition and the RUP: Comparing and Combining Iterative Processes for Acquisition and Software Development." In this article, Pitette claims that

"Over the last twenty-five years, the software industry has devoted much effort to improving the way software developers construct information systems for their customers. In addition to considerable advances in domains such as programming languages and methods, improvements in the software engineering discipline have yielded widely accepted best practices and supporting tools. On the acquisition side, however, the advances have not been as striking."

But he then goes on to describe a new, progressive acquisition approach that is more compatible with modern, iterative software development practices. Based on my years of experience with acquisitions, and working closely with Rational's Mike Barnard, a Rational Unified Process¨ expert, I have formulated some basic tenets of a progressive acquisition approach that build upon Pitette's groundwork. In the next few issues of The Rational Edge, I will share these ideas, trying to show how, at a high level, these tenets integrate with the software engineering methods and lifecycles of the RUP¨. This first article lays the groundwork for the series by defining the problem space as well as basic terms and concepts that will enable common understanding of both the problem and possible solutions.

Note to readers

This series of five papers is about the Rational Unified Process (RUP®). For those not familiar with this software development process, RUP provides a framework that can be adapted and extended to suit the needs of any organization in the business of software development or software customization. The elements of the framework provide a process model which captures the six best practices in modern software development, namely:
1. Develop software iteratively
2. Manage requirements
3. Use component-based architectures
4. Visually model software
5. Continuously verify software quality, and
6. Control changes to the software.

RUP® is also a process product developed and maintained by IBM Rational and integrated with a suite of software tools available on CD-ROM or through the Internet.

While much of the subject matter of these papers is technical in content, the process of acquisition is essentially a project management process and hence is considered suited to this web site.

 

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