Notes on Development Process

Not that this is new, but I thought it worthwile to write on it again.

There are a variety of development methodologies ranging from Waterfall to Iterative.

• Waterfall methodologies, where a lot of documentation is done then handed off to developers, is common yet plagued with issues due to changing requirements.
• Iterative methodologies take these changes into account by providing a facility to communicate with the business throughout the process.

The iterative methodologies range from very little or no documentation to comprehensive auditable documentation. The Unified Process, also known as the Rational Unified Process (RUP), is a framework which allows you to customize the level of documentation creating a method to meet the needs of your project.

Key steps to most processes:

• Multiple iterations in a project creating a buildable, and testable code base.
• Iterations typically last 3 weeks but can range from 2-6 weeks.
• Iterations are locked in to the delivery date, no additional work is added during an iteration. If a deadline can’t be met, features are dropped from the current iteration.
• Each iteration contains all disciplines including Requirements, Design, Implementation, Test etc

Iterative methodologies are also known as Agile methodologies. Other Agile methodologies include Scrum, XP, RUP, Evo
Here’s a nice excerpt from Craig Larman’s book Applying UML and Patterns http://www.craiglarman.com/book_applying_2nd/02-iter%20dev.pdf