Unified Process vs Agile – Differences in Project Management

agileproject-managementrational-unified-process

There've been many discussions on SO about the differences between (Rational) Unified Process and the Agile methodology. Can someone please give me an example on how different a project plan would be if there are 2 teams doing the same project, but following these 2 different methods?

Best Answer

I'm going to use Scrum as a concrete agile example. Scrum has three artifacts: the Product Backlog, the Sprint Backlog, and a Burndown Chart. A backlog is simply a prioritized list of things to do. The chart is for plotting your progress through the current sprint (iteration). These three tools are what you use to track and plan your project in Scrum and that is is your Scrum project plan.

RUP, on the other hand, contains a very long list of documents and artifacts for planning the project. As an example, there is the Iteration Plan, a detailed list of activities and tasks, with assigned resources and task dependencies. This document can perhaps be compared to the "sprint backlog" in Scrum, but that's stretching it.

So the major difference between these approaces is the amount of stuff (roles, artifacts, activities) they prescribe. And as you see from the image, the difference is huge:

enter image description here

Related Topic