Evolving the AUP Lifecycle
 
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I've spoken and/or emailed with several people privately over the past few months about simplifying the AUP even more.  An important observation that people have made, which I've seen myself, is that the Inception and Elaboration phases are not only very short, they are often performed in parallel. I suspect that much of this is the result of the AMDD influence on the initial modeling effort early in the lifecycle -- we just do high-level modeling (e.g. the 5-10% level) during this period.  In the RUP you might flesh out your use case model to the 20% level during Inception, and to the 80% level during Elaboration, hence the difference.
  

 

The proposal is to evolve the current AUP lifecycle (see Figure 1) to combine the Inception and Elaboration phases into a single, Initiation phase (see Figure 2).  The existing milestones would be combined into the Lifecycle Feasibility (LCF) milestone, see Table 1.

 

Figure 1.  The AUP Lifecycle v1.

Figure 2. The AUP Lifecycle v2.

Table 1: Comparing the LCA and LCO milestones with LCF.

Milestone: Phase Criteria
Lifecycle Objectives (LCO): Inception
  • Scope concurrence.  The stakeholders reach agreement as to the scope of the project.
  • Initial requirements definition. There is agreement that the right set of requirements have been captured, at a high level, and there is a shared understanding of those requirements.
  • Plan concurrence.  The stakeholders agree with the initial cost and schedule estimates.
  • Risk acceptance.  The risks have been identified, assessed, and acceptable strategies to address them have been identified.
  • Process acceptance.  The AUP has been initially tailored and agreed to by all parties.
  • Feasibility.  The project makes sense from business, technical, and operational perspectives.
  • Project plan.  Adequate plans are in place for the next phase (Elaboration).
  • Portfolio compliance.  Does the scope of the project fit well into your organization's overall project portfolio?
Lifecycle Architecture (LCA): Elaboration
  • Vision stability. The project vision has stabilized and is realistic.
  • Architecture stability.  You agree that the architecture is stable and sufficient to satisfy the requirements. The architecture has been prototyped where appropriate to address major architectural risks.
  • Risk acceptance.  The risks have been assessed to ensure they have been properly understood and documented and strategies to handle them are acceptable.
  • Feasibility.  The project still makes sense from business, technical, and operational perspectives.
  • Project plan. Detailed iteration plans for the next few Construction iterations, as well as a high-level project plan, are in place.
  • Enterprise compliance.  Does the system architecture reflect the realities of the enterprise architecture?
Lifecycle Feasibility (LCF): Initiation
  • Feasibility.  The project makes sense from business, technical, and operational perspectives.
  • Stakeholder concurrence.  The stakeholders reach agreement as to the vision of the project.
  • Initial requirements definition. There is agreement that the right set of requirements have been captured, at a high level, and there is a shared understanding of those requirements.
  • Architecture stability.  You agree that the architecture is stable and sufficient to satisfy the requirements. The architecture has been prototyped where appropriate to address major architectural risks.
  • Project plan. Detailed iteration plans for the next few Construction iterations, as well as a high-level project plan, are in place.
  • Risk acceptance.  The risks have been identified, assessed, and acceptable strategies to address them have been identified.
  • Process acceptance.  The AUP has been initially tailored and agreed to by all parties.
  • Portfolio compliance.  Does the scope of the project fit well into your organization's overall project portfolio?
  • Enterprise compliance.  Does the system architecture reflect the realities of the enterprise architecture?

 

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