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RUP in the dialogue with Scrum

There is a relation between Agile and RUP. Actually I though that Agile development was a type of RUP. In the article from IBM above you can see that they are fitting the model to RUP.

Does someone has any practical explanation of the relation between these three interesting concepts.

philant
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Geo
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  • I maintain an introduction to RUP on my blog: http://tshikatshikaaa.blogspot.com/2012/11/introduction-to-rational-unified-process-rup.html – Jérôme Verstrynge Nov 25 '12 at 16:41
  • Because this is closed I can't add an answer, but this website did a pretty good description between SCRUM and RUP. See http://www.chiron-solutions.com/chiron-professional-journal/2010/12/20/what-is-the-difference-between-rup-and-scrum-methodologies/. Some diffs are: RUP uses 4 phases, project plan associated with 4 phases, scope is predefined, good for large, long term enterprise level projects. SCRUM uses sprints, no project plan, uses backlog instead of scope, and good for orgs not dependent on deadline. – PatS Jan 16 '18 at 06:58

6 Answers6

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Agile in an umbrella term for methods like XP, Scrum, Crystal, DSDM, FDD,... that share common principles. The Unified Process is a framework that can be used to describe a development process, RUP being one instantiation of UP based on Rational's tools. UP predates most Agile methods and may or may not be considered as Agile. What they have in common is that both Agile methods and UP are Iterative and Incremental Development (IID) methods.

Pascal Thivent
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RUP is a comprehensive iterative and incremental process template. You create a "Development Case" that informs you about what process components you will need in your instance of a development process. You then pull the required process components you need from RUP, like picking items from a menu.

"Agile" is an umbrella term that describes the set of processes that are based on the proposition that software development is a learning process rather than a defined process, and that most high-ceremony artifacts and practices impede the learning process.

SCRUM is a specific Agile project management process. It makes no provisions for how to actually design and develop the system being built.

Doug Knesek
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Agile is an approach to software development:

(quoted from the Agile Alliance website)

What Is Agile Software Development?

In the late 1990’s several methodologies began to get increasing public attention. Each had a different combination of old ideas, new ideas, and transmuted old ideas. But they all emphasized close collaboration between the programmer team and business experts; face-to-face communication (as more efficient than written documentation); frequent delivery of new deployable business value; tight, self-organizing teams; and ways to craft the code and the team such that the inevitable requirements churn was not a crisis.

Scrum and RUP are specific software development methods that can enable Agile software development. These methods (and others, such as XP) are not mutually exclusive, and can be combined in many ways to tailor an Agile process suitable for a particular project. This is a good article describing how these methods can be combined.

Community
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Tim
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Agile and RUP grew separately, RUP on the foundation of UML, and now IBM is trying to catch up the agile wave cause there is no [more] big buzz on RUP.

philant
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Well, RUP is a "soup" of practices... You should customize it to drink your "own" soup... Otherwise it will "kill" your project...

  • In Agile project management, practices adapted from Complex Adaptive Dynamic Systems theory... It has a gentle touch with "human"... RUP does not say much about "peopleware" of project management...
  • Agile methods talk about "emergent" architecture... Where RUP is architecture-centric... Wants from you first establish stable architecture.

But you can apply RUP in an agile manner...Or you can barrow/steal many technical practices(soup incredents/recipes) from it...

danilo
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Novalis
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They are both iterative models which seem similar, but both of them are vastly different. RUP is a framework for organizations and teams while Scrum is intended for a product team with stringent guidelines.

I'd suggest you read these: SCRUM RUP

fasih.rana
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  • Scrum is a framework as well, see the wikipedia link you provide and http://www.scrumalliance.org/pages/scrum_framework – philant Aug 17 '09 at 15:59
  • As philippe already pointed out, Scrum is a framework, often extended by techniques from other methodologies such as XP. There are several flavors of Scrum, and it is common to customize it to your needs. – galaktor Apr 20 '11 at 07:27
  • Took the sentence out of the answer. Thanks! – fasih.rana May 24 '11 at 14:46