Overview

When you are following the enhanced lifecycle of the Unified Process, your Project Management workflow efforts during the Elaboration phase will focus on:

• The technical aspects of project management, such as planning, estimating, scheduling, risk management, and metrics management

• The people aspects of project management such as building your team and managing the people that work on your team

• The political aspects of project management such as coordinating your efforts with other teams

• The training and education efforts required by your staff.

This philosophy, depicted in Figure 2.1, differs from that of the Rational Unified Process (RUP) which focuses mainly on the technical aspects of project management (Kruchten, 1999). Yes, project planning and risk management are very important but the softer aspects of project management are just as important, likely more so, and deserve equal time in your organization s software process.

Figure 2.1: Project management in the real world.

During the Elaboration phase, the Project Management workflow concentrates on achieving several key goals:

• planning in detail and then managing the iteration(s) of the phase,

• developing a coarse-grain plan and estimate for the Construction phase,

• defining and then building your project team for the Construction phase,

• achieving consensus within your organization as to the architecture of the system that you are building,

• and measuring the progress of your development efforts.

The technical aspects of project management, such as planning and estimating, are covered in detail in volume I, The Unified Process Inception Phase, of this series.