New practices content

New content has been added to the IBM® Practices in the following areas.

• Setting up a Performance Measurement System

  This is a new practice for establishing a performance measurement system to support timely, informed decisions. A performance measurement system is used for tracking key measures important to the business.

• Managing Performance through Measurements

  This is a new practice for deploying and managing a performance measurement system, including analyzing measurements to support business decisions and fine-tuning the process through ongoing assessments.

• Metrics
• New metrics have been added for Test Case Execution Status, Test Coverage of Requirements, Build Health, Test Status and Glide Path, and Test Case Defect Yield.
• In addition, the metrics for Burndown, Velocity, Code Health, Iteration Velocity, Fixes Failing Verification, Defect Distribution, and Iteration Length have been substantially enhanced.

• New downloadable practices

  New practices continue to be developed and made available for download from the Rational Method Composer support site. These include practices for Business Use Case Modeling, User Story-Driven Development, Product Portfolio Management, Service-oriented Modeling and Architecture, as well as examples of how to tailor practices.

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New or enhanced features

Although the October 2009 release of IBM® Rational® Method Composer, Version 7.5.0.1, is mainly a fix release, it also contains significant new features that address more than 40 client requests for enhancements. Most of these enhancements are user preferences that are off by default. Check the online documentation if you want to enable these features:

Usability

• Check spelling more thoroughly

  With the enhanced Spell Check feature, you can now find and fix spelling errors for all attributes in all method elements within a method plug-in. Just right-click any method plug-in, or any of its child nodes in the Library view, and select Spell Check.

• Automatically link to a presentation name

  Select Preferences > Method > Authoring, and you can link the name with a presentation name for new method elements (this option is off by default). When selected, this automatically generates the element name when you type the presentation name.

• Open the diagram editor easier

  Open a capability pattern or delivery process, and a new Tool menu item is available to open the corresponding activity diagram. This simplifies access to the diagram editor.

• Show configurations that reference an element

  When you navigate to Preferences > Method > Authoring > References View, you can select Show configurations to see which configurations reference the element that is currently selected in the Library view.

Web UI

• Publish tag groups

  You can select tags to display on published pages. By displaying the tags, you can indicate how an element is assigned to a category, such as "Mandatory" or "Optional."

• Use Microsoft® Internet Explorer® Version 8 if you prefer

  You can now use the Internet Explorer 8 Web browser to view published content.

• Publish with PHP server-based search

  You can configure the Web site search to use PHP and Zend on either Apache HTTP Server or Internet Information Services (IIS).

• Set a background image on published Web site (watermark)

  When publishing Web sites to HTML, you can select Publish background to create a background image. For example, you could use your company logo or a watermark on your published Web pages.

Reporting and publishing

• Get better publishing performance

  Optimizations to the HTML publishing engine have improved its performance. Based on tests with the IBM Rational Unified Process (RUP) Large Project configuration, this results in an approximately 25% improvement in publishing.

• Create BIRT reports based on tags

  Now you can use the Eclipse-based Business Intelligence and Reporting (BIRT) system to create reports that are based on tags.

• Get RSS feeds based on queries

  Use RSS feeds to generate specific process information for subscribers in multiple standard formats, such as "atom" and "rss2.0," from a Lucene search index.

Process editor and diagramming

• Set a default routing style for lines on activity diagrams

  Previously this option needed to be set on a diagram-by-diagram basis. A new user preference (Method > Authoring > Activity Diagram > Connections) is available to set the user preference for all activity diagrams.

• Re-use and update diagrams (extend a capability pattern)

  Previously, if you re-used a capability pattern, the activity diagrams were read-only. This created issues if you modified the capability pattern (for example, suppressed a task). Now you can suppress or add tasks and activities to capability patterns and update the diagram, yet still re-use unmodified elements.

• Associate work products with milestones easier

  Previously, only work products at the same work breakdown structure (WBS) level or higher were available for selection to associate with a milestone. Now you can associate work products at the same WBS level or any descendent level.

Import and export

• Export a configuration to XML

  Previously, you could export the entire library or selected plug-ins to XML. An option to export a configuration is now available, too.

• Enhance MSP export documentation
• Add support for IBM® WebSphere® Business Modeler, Version 6.1.2

Resources

Learn

• About IBM Rational Method Composer:
  • Overview
    IBM Rational Method Composer is a flexible process platform containing a process library and tooling for use in multiple business and IT dimensions and throughout IT lifecycle management (ITLM).
  • Trial

    Download a trial copy of Rational Method Composer, free

    For help, watch this demo: Get started with Rational Method Composer, Part

  
  
• Support:
  • Search the technical support knowledge base, get drivers and software downloads, access forums and premium services, submit problems, and get warranty and other support.
  
  
• Rational Method Composer Version 7.5 plug-ins
  • Access the list of IBM® Rational Unified Process® (RUP®) plug-ins currently available for IBM Rational Method Composer Version 7.5. RUP plug-ins offer methods and practices across a variety of IT and business domains.
  
  
• Rational Method Composer page on IBM developerWorks.
  
  
• Learn about other applications in the IBM Rational Software Delivery Platform, including collaboration tools for parallel development and geographically dispersed teams, plus specialized software for architecture management, asset management, change and release management, integrated requirements management, process and portfolio management, and quality management.
  
  
• Visit the Rational software area on developerWorks for technical resources and best practices for Rational Software Delivery Platform products.
  
  
• Explore Rational computer-based, Web-based, and instructor-led online courses. Hone your skills and learn more about Rational tools with these courses, which range from introductory to advanced. The courses on this catalog are available for purchase through computer-based training or Web-based training. Additionally, some "Getting Started" courses are available free of charge.
  
  
• Subscribe to the Rational Edge newsletter for articles on the concepts behind effective software development.
  
  
• Subscribe to the IBM developerWorks newsletter, a weekly update on the best of developerWorks tutorials, articles, downloads, community activities, webcasts and events.
  
  
• Browse the technology bookstore for books on these and other technical topics.
  
  

Get products and technologies

• Download trial versions of IBM Rational software.
  
  
• Download these IBM product evaluation versions and get your hands on application development tools and middleware products from DB2®, Lotus®, Tivoli®, and WebSphere®.
  
  

Discuss

• Check out developerWorks blogs and get involved in the developerWorks community.
  
  

About the author

Dr. Chris Sibbald brings more than 20 years of practical systems engineering experience to his current role as Product Manager for IBM Rational Method Composer, IBM Rational Harmony Library of Best Practices, and the IBM Measured Capability Improvement Framework (MCIF). Chris joined the IBM Rational team in 2008 through the IBM acquisition of Telelogic. Based in Ontario, Canada, he represents IBM as the Chair of the Advanced Software Engineering Research and Training (ASERT) Laboratory Advisory Board and is a member of the INCOSE Corporate Advisory Board.

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Table of contents

• New practices content
• New or enhanced features
• Resources
• About the author
• Comments

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