Taking the Plunge
Congratulations! Arriving at the point where you have realized that you want to explore what value RUP and IBM Rational Solutions can bring to your company is a significant milestone. This enterprise-level process solution and supporting set of development tools can provide a significant return on investment. After making the conscious decision that you are going to champion RUP and the Rational tools as a potential process improvement initiative, you will need to take a few initial steps. First, identify and create a rationale for why you want to use the RUP and Rational tools. Then, work on what the key principles for business-driven development will bring to your company and what the combination of RUP and Rational tools will do in terms of value. Finally, you will need to begin selling the initiative to your executives and decision makers. Introducing an improved process is really about introducing organizational change. The complexity is much more than most people generally appreciate. Whether you are in a smaller-size company with an IT department of fewer than 50 people or a large one with thousands of people, the organization will need to change how it thinks and acts when developing and deploying software and systems.
The rest of this chapter is written under the premise that your organization does not already have a significant adoption of or implementation of RMC/RUP and/or the IBM Rational Solutions.