Level: Introductory David Jones, Senior Methodology and Business Architect, CSC
Stosh MisiaszekIBM
17 Feb 2004 from The Rational Edge: The first in a series of articles contributed by IBM Rational systems integrator partners, this article examines an integration of two methodolgoies: CSC's Catalyst and IBM Rational's Rational Unified Process, or RUP. The result? C-RUP.
As business change accelerates at an unprecedented pace, globalization, coupled
with a hyper-competitive business climate in industrialized nations, has intensified
the dependency between business success and information technology. Companies
and institutions typically look to their IT organizations to deliver solutions
more quickly and efficiently to customers and stakeholders. Yet most IT organizations
continue to deploy software development methods and approaches suitable for
smaller, specialized IT solutions, perhaps prefaced by a few business analysis
activities.
IT organizations often have a multitude of technologies and software development
methods available from software vendors, service providers, or internal sources.
However, they seldom unite these resources effectively to pursue concurrent
IT and business changes. For example, a large, traditional enterprise may think
that creating an online ordering system is critical to satisfying customer demands
for a constantly evolving product line and sustaining competitive market advantage.
But establishing a blueprint for both business change and system development
requires a single, overarching methodology -- not several. And, unfortunately,
most IT organizations have neither the time nor the expertise to integrate multiple
methodology frameworks.
To help these organizations, CSC (Computer Sciences Corporation) teamed up
with IBM Rational to combine their two well-known process frameworks into a
single methodology called "C-RUP." C-RUP is based on CSC Catalyst
and IBM Rational Unified Process,® both of which are well-suited for integration
projects. Both are mature, field tested, and self-contained methodologies. Each
addresses particular aspects of large-scale projects encompassing both business
change and IT development. And both have the flexibility, modifiability, and
agility to accommodate the inevitable additions and changes that result from
evolving business and IT requirements.
In this article, we will outline the purpose and architecture of C-RUP, describe
the collaborative effort that produced this hybrid methodology, and provide
a roadmap for others who might want to pursue a similar path.
Structural similarities, complementary content
Both CSC Catalyst and RUP are based on well-defined foundational principles,
industry best practices, and the extensive experience of their respective consulting
organizations. Both are engineered and continually enhanced by harvesting best
practices from field experts and artifacts, and then fusing these with industry
knowledge.
The CSC Catalyst and RUP frameworks have a natural synergy because of their
structural similarities and complementary content. Their similar foundational
object-model structures -- encompassing lifecycle phases, artifacts (work products),
processes, and roles -- enables them to be joined together. However, the scope,
perspective, and content of the two methodologies are different. Catalyst takes
a broad, high-level view of business change that ultimately drives the system
solution; it provides a holistic framework for the change initiative. In contrast,
RUP focuses mainly on the immediate business context for the solution to be
developed.
CSC's corporate methodology team and IBM Rational collaborated to build
and deploy a methodology framework that unified these two approaches, within
an accelerated timeframe. Before we describe the principles and processes that
guided this effort, let's take a brief look at each of the methodologies.
Overview of CSC Catalyst
CSC Catalyst is a global methodology for delivering business and IT services
and solutions. It provides the common framework, language, and processes through
which CSC practitioners in various disciplines, industries, and geographies
help clients realize business change via integrated solutions and services.
Originally, the methodology focused on system integration projects within the
systems development lifecycle; then it evolved to address business process
reengineering and larger scale, business-driven initiatives. The CSC Catalyst
lifecycle provided processes in all domains involved in business change: process,
organization, location, data, application, and technology.
Over time, however, CSC Catalyst began to incorporate best practices gleaned
from CSC divisions serving clients in large government sectors: civil, defense,
and aerospace. This brought enterprise architecture, solution engineering, and
program-level governance capabilities to CSC Catalyst. At the same time, the
increasingly global nature of CSC clients and the trend toward outsourcing of
business, application, and technology services generated greater capability
for process repeatability, standardization, and integration -- in both industry
clients' operating environments and CSC's own delivery capability.
With its integration into CSC's global knowledge environment, CSC Catalyst
became the unifying, global language for delivering both client and internal
initiatives.
The scope of the CSC Catalyst methodology encompasses both lifecycle and management
concerns, as illustrated in Figure 1.
Figure 1: Scope of CSC Catalyst.
CSC Catalyst
1
reflects and guides how CSC professionals
deliver services and solutions. They combine processes within the lifecycle
framework to form client engagement initiatives, as depicted in Figure 2.
Figure 2: CSC Catalyst-based initiatives
Overview of RUP
IBM Rational Unified Process, or RUP, is a Web-enabled software engineering
process that enhances team productivity and delivers software best practices
to all team members. These best practices have been culled from over twenty
years of collaboration between IBM Rational and its customers, and they represent
a mature approach to software engineering:
- Develop software iteratively
- Manage requirements
- Use component-based architectures
- Model visually
- Continuously verify software quality
- Manage changes to software
Organized into a series of four project phases -- Inception, Elaboration,
Construction, and Transition -- RUP
2
guides
project teams through an iterative approach to software development. Based on
the six best practices listed above, the iterative approach allows development
teams to add functionality to working software in increments. They tackle the
most difficult, high-risk aspects of the project first, and trace essential
system requirements through each iteration of the software. The four RUP phases
and their associated workflows are illustrated in Figure 3.
Figure 3: RUP phases, with associated workflows and example iterations
C-RUP: Integrating two methodologies into one
C-RUP, a framework for integrating CSC Catalyst and RUP, is available to CSC
practitioners via a CSC Catalyst Plug-In to the RUP environment, with hyperlinks
to CSC Catalyst's Toolkit environment. Conceptually, C-RUP extends RUP's
object-oriented custom development capabilities into a larger business process
framework, through which CSC professionals drive service and solution
engagements.
Although CSC Catalyst includes a variety of paths for process enablement and
development, Rational Unified Process upgrades Catalyst's object-oriented
development space with its industry-recognized best practices. Furthermore,
IBM Rational products are popular in many of CSC's largest accounts, which
use CSC Catalyst as their overarching, business change methodology. In the past,
CSC engagement teams often looked for ways to bring Catalyst and RUP together
on a project level, but they could never justify the considerable engineering
effort required.
Now, with the collaboration of IBM Rational, CSC has brought these technologies
together in C-RUP. With C-RUP, RUP can integrate smoothly as a development path
within the CSC Catalyst framework. Starting with CSC Catalyst's Architecture
phase, as shown in Figure 4, RUP is positioned as a development path for OO
custom application development; it includes "touch points" to various
CSC Catalyst lifecycle specialty area processes (e.g., Organizational Change)
and management area processes (e.g., Project Management).
Figure 4: C-RUP incorporates RUP as a development path within CSC Catalyst,
including methodology process interfaces
However, integrating methodologies for successful field use is not as simple
as putting some experts in a room for a few months and telling them to combine
a prevailing base methodology with RUP software. In fact, combining these two
methodologies effectively required a well-planned, disciplined, and coordinated
series of workstreams, frequently operating in parallel. The following story
of how we produced the C-RUP methodology highlights the essential activities
in this effort.
Stage one: Establishing the concept and collaboration
The opportunity to create C-RUP emerged as the result of several business drivers.
First, during its planning, the CSC Catalyst Group launched an internal initiative
to engineer a knowledge-based asset that would complement and augment CSC Catalyst
in areas of significant benefit to field engagement teams.
Although the group maintained relationships with multiple vendors who support
elements of CSC Catalyst, such as its process design tools, IBM Rational quickly
emerged as the ideal candidate for supporting a methodology augmentation. RUP
methodology had principles and a structure similar to those of CSC Catalyst,
excellent industry penetration, an object-oriented platform, and complementary
capabilities for OO-based work.
The CSC Catalyst team then conducted an internal inquiry to assess how CSC
was using IBM Rational products around the globe as well as IBM Rational's capabilities.
This confirmed the team's choice for several reasons:
- Many large CSC accounts were already using IBM Rational tools successfully,
and CSC practitioners wanted to understand how to use them with CSC Catalyst's
strengths in business change and project governance.
- IBM Rational could help upgrade the development portions of CSC Catalyst
by incorporating RUP's leading-edge, object-oriented best practices for custom
applications.
- IBM Rational could augment CSC Catalyst's capabilities with automated tools
and reusable templates.
- RUP supported the UML standard for modeling, as did CSC Catalyst.
When the CSC Catalyst Group contacted IBM Rational, the collaborative relationship
developed quickly, and the team soon realized that any methodology implementation,
whether customized or not, involves much more than purchasing copies of the
product and providing a list of recommended training courses. Especially in
globally distributed organizations, a successful implementation requires careful
management of the customizations (if any), as well as a comprehensive rollout
program to educate end-users and project managers about how to use and benefit
from the unified methodology. Rolling out even a simple change within an integrated
methodology is not trivial on a global scale. The integration effort needs to
be carefully planned and coordinated so that changes can be kept to a minimum.
The implementation should also be designed for easy maintenance and upgrades
when there are new releases of either methodology.
Originally, the CSC Catalyst/IBM Rational knowledge asset was conceived as
an online manual explaining the relationships among CSC Catalyst, IBM Rational
tools, and RUP, and how to leverage them all on a CSC engagement. Soon, however,
this concept evolved into the notion of an "integrated methodology product"
that would allow CSC practitioners to navigate electronically through a single
object-oriented methodology environment. Envisioning an integrated product that
CSC professionals could easily apply to the planning and execution of client
engagements, the team focused on a set of known business and technical priorities
to effectively evolve C-RUP. As shown in Table 1, they analyzed these high-level
requirements across the CSC Catalyst Domains of Change to identify areas where
C-RUP would have an important impact.
Table 1: Analysis of high-level requirements and impact of C-RUP on
CSC Catalyst Domains of Change
Stage two: Knowledge transfer
After open discussions between CSC and IBM Rational about deployment and support
issues, the IBM Rational team proposed an accelerated six-month certification
and qualification program in Rational products and disciplines. This would be
delivered to a specified number of CSC practitioners through both online and
instructor-led courses. CSC initiated a global query and evaluation of more
than 100 interested CSC practitioners across all major continents, and selected
fifty of them to undertake the pilot program.
An internal workshop provided initial knowledge on how RUP Organizer, RUP Builder,
IBM Rational Rose XDE Developer, and other tools could be used to develop the
C-RUP Plug-in and Practice Guide. The latter would explain the use of C-RUP,
the integration between CSC Catalyst and RUP, and the requirements for setting
up a C-RUP project.
Phase three: Architecture and development
Based on their experience with the IBM Rational tools in the workshop, the team
agreed that a "thin plug-in" approach using RUP Organizer and RUP
Builder would be the most advantageous. The thin plug-in's modifiability
would position the CSC Catalyst Group staff to provide timely and efficient
maintenance and updates of C-RUP in the future.
Creating the C-RUP solution began in earnest with mapping the CSC Catalyst
architecture to the RUP architecture -- identifying all the touch points, overlaps,
and gaps in hundreds of objects: artifacts, activities, and processes. A team
of CSC subject matter experts (SMEs) helped analyze the methodology bridging
requirements, then designed and developed the solution elements of the C-RUP
Plug-In and an accompanying Practice Guide. The team then began to identify
and build the Plug-In's "guidance components," which would
advise C-RUP practitioners on how to link and apply CSC Catalyst elements to
particular components in RUP, and to transition from CSC Catalyst to RUP and
vice-versa.
Using the virtual environment of IBM Lotus Notes SameTime, the C-RUP development
team showcased a prototype of the C-RUP Plug-In design to a group of practitioners
experienced in both CSC Catalyst and RUP. This led to refinements of the solution
architecture, including the format and navigation for the guidance component,
and sharing of successive prototypes with other internal CSC experts.
Figure 5 depicts the global, virtual approach the C-RUP Team used to create
C-RUP:
Figure 5: The C-RUP virtual operating model: coordinated workstreams
As Figure 5 shows, the C-RUP initiative was planned and coordinated from a
CSC office near Philadelphia, PA. With input from CSC Subject Matter Experts
(SMEs) from Sydney, Australia, who helped to define the architecture and develop
content, the C-RUP Plug-In software was engineered at a CSC office in Waltham,
MA. Other CSC SME's and reviewers participated remotely from a variety
of time zones and locations.
IBM Rational experts provided key RUP knowledge and technical support from
a variety of international locations. In addition, the CSC IBM Rational SME
program leveraged a Rational licensing arrangement with CSC's Consulting division
to create a global support network for C-RUP.
Knowledge management also played an important role in the globally distributed
model. CSC's knowledge portal served as a centralized repository for sharing
C-RUP knowledge and evolving the solution, providing configuration management
and deployment support as well. The portal was also used to collect CSC-produced field
collateral early on, and then best practices and lessons learned from using
RUP with CSC Catalyst.
At the time of this publication, the C-RUP team is finalizing the solution
design and development activities, with feedback from user testing and reviews.
Critical success factors: Deployment, training, and user support
As the CSC and IBM Rational members of the C-RUP team realized, creating and
adapting a business change methodology for an organization can be a purely academic
exercise if the methodology is not implemented effectively. To be successful,
a rollout must be accompanied by an educational program that reaches a high
percentage of the target end users and provides sufficient background for people
to understand the methodology and its components.
The IBM/CSC collaboration uncovered some significant challenges that a training
program would have to address:
- The trainees are globally distributed and billable. A multi-day training
event in one location was not feasible.
- The training program would have to be flexible, and self-paced, which meant
that achieving full participation and follow-through from students would be
more challenging than in a traditional classroom setting. We would have to
devise some incentive to ensure successful completion by all.
- The program required active participation and management by both IBM Rational
and CSC, so it had to be structured to make co-management possible.
- Since RUP addresses everything from requirements definition to design, coding,
and quality assurance, and since each of these areas is supported by a specific
IBM Rational tool or toolset, the CSC/IBM team was concerned that field support
staff might become too specialized in narrow areas of concern (e.g., a OO/UML
expert might not learn about change management).
This last consideration gave rise to the Subject Matter Expert (SME) program,
which combines the use of Web Based Training (WBT) with courses at IBM education
facilities worldwide for maximum flexibility. Participants were presented with
two options for each subject track: one led to "qualification" in
the chosen subject area, a designation meaningful only within the CSC organization;
the other option led to "certification" in the subject area, which
is an industry-wide designation.
IBM Rational provided the training resources and materials to complete the
course. CSC provided a pool of candidates from which the company chose carefully
to achieve its objectives of global distribution and full representation across
all subject areas. CSC also took responsibility to manage training licenses
and other assets related to the program, while IBM provided the assets themselves
and the back office infrastructure.
Finally, a feedback loop was incorporated into the training program. This has
been essential for fine-tuning the program as well as for developing new versions
of it that will serve CSC's needs as C-RUP is rolled out to an even wider
community.
Participation in the program has been excellent. Clearly, the benefits of training
and certification for each program participant, tailored to their work needs,
and the cooperative approach to managing the program, were key factors in determining
the high level of acceptance and participation in this program.
Blueprint for success: A collaborative roadmap for integrating and deploying
business change and IT methodology
Based on the C-RUP lessons learned, the best approach to methodology integration
combines the planning and execution of workstreams to meet key milestones.
Workstreams
Workstreams employed in the C-RUP initiative are represented in Figure 6. Note
that the times shown in this chart are based on empirical data derived from
the collaborative effort described above. Times for other projects may vary
considerably.
Figure 6: C-RUP initiative project workstreams
Project management
The project management workstream results in a high-level project plan with
milestones, deliverables, roles, and timeframes for the key workstreams represented
in Figure 6. It encompasses securing sponsorship and stakeholder buy-in and
any funding necessary to complete the project. The foundation for the alignment
should be established within the first month, although it may take another month
to achieve full alignment as key stakeholders are brought on board.
The project manager creates a first iteration project plan and arranges the
resources for the methodology integration project, reporting on progress regularly
to all stakeholders. The project management discipline is essential for managing
and integrating the multiple workstreams, including asset engineering, configuration
management, development tool acquisition, implementation, and training.
Envision and evolve concept
This workstream results in an agreement among the methodology initiative planners
and architects about which aspects of the methodologies will be integrated to
meet the needs of field practitioners on client engagements. The business change
methodology should provide a foundation into which the IT methodology will fit,
and a vision document should describe how these methods will be integrated.
In addition, field practitioner input should be used to define requirements
for both the integrated methodology and supporting services that will ensure
its effective use. The process -- from formulating the concept to establishing
a high-level design -- should take one or two months near the outset of the
initiative.
Establish technical infrastructure and development processes
This workstream results in an updated, detailed project plan that reflects acquisition of the technology
development environment, installation, development, and
the education requirements by development team role and effort required. Additional
effort may include migrating content from one format to the desired end format,
adding new process content and documentation, and manipulating the underlying
technology of the methodologies themselves. The process -- from specifying technology
requirements to team process and tool training -- should take from two to three
months early in the initiative.
Define methodology architecture
This workstream results in analysis of the gaps between two methodologies, generating
content requirements practitioners will use to apply the integrated methodology.
These requirements will cover the conceptual framework from which the end user
will understand and apply the integrated methodology, and the type, source,
focus, and organization of the knowledge needed to address gaps at each of the
methodology touchpoints, or interfaces. Cross-mapping the methodologies will
play a vital role here, and that work can be extensive, depending on the breadth
and depth of the methodologies you're combining. Subject matter experts
with in-depth knowledge in both methodologies must be involved. The complete
analysis may take from three to four months, and should evolve in parallel with
the "develop solution components and content" workstream.
Design solution
This workstream results in a "meta-architecture" -- a blueprint of the
components and interfaces to drive their development. This includes the format
for the components inserted in the methodology environment, as well as the hyperlinks
within the base methodology environment and between both methodologies if they
are in electronic form. It is helpful to review the data/object architectures
of the methodologies.
This activity may take from three to four months, and will evolve in parallel
with the "define methodology architecture" workstream.
Develop solution components and content
This workstream results in a completed set of content components embedded within
(and across) the methodology environments, with hyperlinks in place. Components
are developed iteratively by the SMEs in the designated component template formats,
and a technical editor reviews them. Development includes providing user instructions
for launching and using the integrated methodology environment. Components and
links must be tested in a non-production environment. This activity may take
from four to five months, and will evolve in parallel with the "design
solution" workstream.
Conduct user reviews
This workstream results in a series of iterative prototypes for each major component
of the integrated methodology solution that has been deployed and field tested.
SMEs, who represent the users of the combined methodology, provide critical
feedback about the integrated methodology framework, navigation, knowledge organization,
and content. The process -- from establishing a proof-of-concept prototype to
realizing a fully functional solution -- may take three to four months.
Communications, deployment, and user support
This workstream results in a deployment strategy, course content, delivery
mechanism, and schedule, including identifying and training key participants.
This process should start early in the initiative and be launched simultaneously
with the integration methodology solution. It should span the lifecycle of the
project and then continue after deployment, to provide support.
Content management and release management
This workstream results in a set of procedures for managing the iterative development
of content and changes to future releases of the integrated methodology. It
begins after the set-up of the technical environment that houses the evolving
asset configuration components, as well as the methodology architecture definition.
This definition specifies how the data for the solution will be defined, controlled,
and evolved as data objects. This activity should begin and evolve in parallel
with the "design solution" workstream. It should continue indefinitely
beyond the initial release to sustain and refresh the integrated methodology
product.
Summary: Business change and methodology integration
Accelerating business change is a fact of life for today's global commercial
and institutional entities. Many larger organizations have made considerable
investments in both business and software development methodologies, but few
have integrated them successfully. Often, attempts at doing so amount to "bolting
on" a few process design techniques to an IT methodology, or vice versa. Unfortunately,
this creates more extra work than value.
To support business change, what is needed is a comprehensive business change
methodology that incorporates leading IT solution development methods. Integrating
two richly featured methodologies is not easy to do, but CSC and IBM Rational
have proved that it can be done. Following the processes presented in this article,
they took the best of CSC Catalyst and IBM Rational Unified Process to create
C-RUP. This integrated methodology has already been tested and used successfully
by field professionals at CSC.
Notes
1 For more information on CSC Catalyst, see http://www.csc.com/solutions/knowledgemanagement/mds/mds122/index.shtml
2 For more information on IBM Rational Unified Process, see the
resources available at http://www-306.ibm.com/software/awdtools/rup/.
About the authors  | | | David J. Jones is a senior methodology and business architect in CSC's Corporate Knowledge Program. With nineteen years of experience in the IT industry and thirteen years with CSC, he leads initiatives in the design and development of CSC Catalyst -- the company's global methodology for delivering business and IT services and products to clients and internally. As co-leader of the Catalyst Methodology Community, he facilitates the application of company best practices and knowledge management to support business change initiatives in the field. He also provides field support through methodology panels, virtual conferences, and business architecture consulting engagements. Frequently, he publishes articles on company methodology and its role in supporting strategic business objectives at CSC. |
| | | Stanley (Stosh) Misiaszek is the alliance manager representing the IBM Rational brand. In his seventh year at IBM, he leads the alliance effort between IBM Rational and CSC. After beginning his career as an assembly language programmer twenty years ago, he spent time developing methodology and delivering training for large corporations, as well as designing and delivering training material for software developers. He holds an MS in computer engineering from Syracuse University. |
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