OpenUP and EssUP: Subsets of the RUP

My column in today’s edition of SD Times News on Thursday discusses two new subsets of the Rational Unified Process — OpenUP, which is implemented in the Eclipse Process Framework, and EssUP, developed by Ivar Jacobson for use with Visual Studio Team System.

I’m anticipating that some people will ask, “Why didn’t you mention the Enterprise Unified Process?” That’s not an oversight. Scott Ambler has done a tremendous job with the EUP, but its goals are different.

OpenUP and EssUP were designed as simplifications of the heavyweight RUP: functional subsets that retained the principles of the Unified Process framework, but which were streamlined for agile development.

By contrast, Scott’s EUP is an extension to the RUP, bringing the production and retirement phases of the software development lifecycle into this well-defined process. If anything, the EUP makes the RUP even less agile — but leaves it more complete, and better suited for serious requirements-driven development.