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Sunday, October 19, 2014

How is Agile Unified Process (AUP) different from Rational Unified Process (RUP) ?

Agile Unified Process uses Agile Modelling, which is used for describing the modelling and documentation process based on agile disciplines. The Rational Unified Process (RUP) is also an agile methodology. Here we highlight the differences between the two. Both of these processes are divided into disciplines or workflows, which are carried out in iterations. Agile Unified Process (AUP) is derived from RUP, and we can say it is a simpler version of it. There are 3 disciplines followed by RUP i.e., Modelling, Requirements and Analysis and Design. The AUP being the simple version combines all of them into one discipline. It is because of this that it is easy for the RUP teams to migrate to AUP if they want to. Thus RUP is very flexible and can be merged with agile modeling practices.

> Active stakeholder participation: In RUP projects, stakeholders including customers, users, managers and operators, are often involved as a part of the project disciplines. It is necessary for the team to assign modelling roles like requirements specifier, business process designer etc., to the participating stakeholders. The activeness of the stakeholders is related to less requirement of feedback in the Agile Unified Process.

> Agile Modelling Standards: A significant part in AUP is played by the UML (Unified Modelling Language) diagrams. For maintaining its agility, the agile teams often blend the standards and the guidelines together. On the other side, in an RUP project, the guidelines to be adopted by the teams for creating modelling artifacts are included.

> Gentle application of the patterns: The AUP teams get the full freedom for choosing which modelling patterns to use. However, in RUP, these patterns are defined by the product depending on the modelling disciplines being followed. This practice has led to an enhancement in the performance of Agile Unified Process by easing the way to apply patterns. But, this concept is not as explicit as it should be.

> Application of the right artifacts: The advice for creation of various types of models is provided by the AUP and it is one of its strengths. The recent version of the RUP also provides plenty of advice on creating non – UML artifacts (UI flow diagrams, data models etc.).

> Collective ownership: This concept of Agile Modelling is used for making enhancements in the projects developed using AUP. But, it has to be assumed that the open communication is supported by the team culture. Along with supporting this concept, AUP lays strong stress on issues concerning configuration management. Therefore, the change management processes sometimes can be a hurdle in path of development.

> Parallel creation of several models: This is an important concept of UP. The team is required to check the activitiy diagrams corresponding to each discipline and see if they are being worked up on in parallel. But there is an issue with UP which is that the flow diagrams do not explain this well.

> Creation of the simple content: The simplicity is assumed by the developers. The team needs to adopt the guidelines stating the use of simple models and also the customers must be happy with this. However, many organizations often find it difficult to adopt this culture.

> Temporary models should be discarded: The AUP team is free to decide which models to discard and which models to keep. Travelling light also helps in maintaining simplicity.

> Public display of models: Models should be displayed publicly for facilitating open communication. This way all the artifacts will be available to all the stakeholders


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