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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