JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 4, APRIL 2011, ISSN 2151-9617

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Coating RUP-Project Management over

SOA-Project Management
Sheikh Muhammad Saqib Muhammad Ahmad Jan Shakeel Ahmad

Institute of Computing and Information Technology

Gomal University, PAKISTAN

Abstract—Beautiful thing can have ugly part but it does not mean that thing is useless for decoration. SOA plays a
vital role in development of service oriented computing. In every type of computing, project management is very ne-
cessary and strong practice. Due to huge scope of SOA, its project management is some time becomes feeble. SOA can
follow traditional approaches for project management but risk handling can be loosed. Risk exploring and handling is
very influential in agile methodologies such as in RUP. Here author investigates that by using RUP project manage-
ment (RUP-PM) in SOA projects, these projects can be done with highly percentage of RUP-PM work.

Index Terms— Service Oriented Computing, SOA, RUP, Project Management, Risk, Agile Methodology
.

——————————  ——————————

1 INTRODUCTION

D uring the development and evolution of software

artifacts, integration of traceability and Software
configuration management help to change manage-
ment [2]. Enterprise requirements perform rapidly re-
spond to changes in business policies, processes and
commercial technologies and implementation is the well
addresses of SOA governance. Traditional approaches for
IT project management which includes requirements and
budgets etc can not be suitable for achieving SOA bene-
fits. Changing from fundamental IT project management
to program management, a concept of network organiza-
tion is introduced to take advantage of SOA [7].
Governance is very important for SOA project planning,
because it points to explore hopes and verification of
power. Separate process or part of management or lea-
dership processes are the major theme of governance.
SOA governance is very useful for achieving SOA goals
and vision by managing policy and control throughout
the service life cycle with its components [4].
SOA project planning can be easily handled with the help
of governance because it can control of the SOA engage-
ment to achieve needs of customer’s business and chal-
lenges. Governance model also includes: What to do, how
to do it, who should do it, how it should be measured.
Although in SOA almost services are loosely coupled and
late binding business processes i.e. each service will be
treated as separate unit, so work of project manager will
not be as technical as in tightly bound activities such as
investment of long time on achieving milestones and the
completion of the project. Besides some planning issues,
major responsibility of project manager will be healthy
risk management i.e. “all team members should not hesi-
tate to report concerns or challenges maintain a live
project risk database that tracks all issues and resolutions,
do not obsess” [1]. According to nature of SOA, it is con-
cluded from different directions that SOA has poor
project management or SOA is changing the role of
project management etc. But project management is the
central, concreted and solid backbone of any project and
SOA can not stand without this backbone. Now questions
arises how this target will be achieved? As there are dif-
ferent methodologies which use different practices for
project management, but if enterprises can follow the
project management discipline of RUP; 100% work of
SOA can be done with 70% using of RUP project man-
agement.
2 SOA-PM RESPONSIBILITY:
Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) is an approach to
organizing information processing. The approach consists
of describing all interactions in terms of services, in which
a requestor asks an agent for something to be done, and
the agent ensures that it gets done and delivers a re-
sponse to the requestor. Organization of information
processing leads to SOA approach. Here all communica-
tions is done in term of services i.e. requester sends a re-
quest as something to be done, then agent response to
requester [10]. Many features are common in traditional
PM and SOA projects PM. Major Responsibilities of SOA
PM are:
-Processes to manage the team.
-Communicate between the project team, the Sponsor,
Managers and Stakeholders.
-Create strategies for the identification, control and
avoidance of risk.
-Compliance with standards, procedures and require-
ments.
-Management of time and costs to complete a project on
time and within budget.
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SOA project plan follows all steps of traditional project tics, ‘1-category’ is normally low in value and ‘category-0
management but service model should be define properly will be treated as no value of characteristics.
and analysis of services should be completed [13].

3 RUP-PM RESPONSIBILITY:
Table-1: Coating RUP-PM over SOA-PM
The RUP development process consists of four phases i.e.
inception, elaboration, construction, transition, each RUP-PM Coating on
SOA-PM

Catagory
phase is further divided in to many iterations. The pur-
pose of each iteration is to develop a demonstrable part of
the software project [3].
Major responsibility of project manager of RUP is to man-
Risk: Project is failed to When activities are 2
age project management from scratch to end. He defines
1. RUP
project scope and deliverables with stakeholders and se- deliver the required tightly bound then
project
nior management. It is also responsibility of PM explore management project. Metrics: Some there may be high
full scale project plans and associated documents such as concepts measurements are used level of risks as
lists for risks, status reports and etc with the help of ap- to control the risk service are loosely
propriate tools. Purpose of project management discipline through the planning coupled so there
is to create a framework for managing software-intensive process. will be risks but it
projects, framework for risk & risk management, iterative will be easily
project plan, monitoring of an iteration and metrics. measured and con-
Project management discipline has relationships with trolled. Hence risks
other RUP discipline such as business modeling, re- and metrics will
quirements, analysis and design, deployment, implemen- come in category-2.
tation and testing [11] [8].
Iterations are very im- As services are
2. RUP portant because it make independent in
4 COATING RUP-PM OVRE SOA-PM: Iterative a connection between nature, so there 3
Knowledge about the risks is not enough but its man- Approach project and objective. development should
agement is very important for successful projects. Tech- Valuable responsibilities be in iterative na-
nical risks and organizational risks both make an influ- of project manager are: ture. Hence itera-
ence on successful completion of project. Literature shows plane of iterations, time tion will come in
assumption of risk management instead of actually their of each iteration and category-3.
usage in practice of project. Stakeholder perception of what will be the aim &
risk & success and stakeholder behavior in the risk man- objective of deliverable
agement process is the new key which will make the rela- iteration.
tionships between project success and risk management
-Decompose complete Separately, all
[12]. Agile methodologies supports component-based
3. RUP tasks into all sub tasks. services are just
systems development, facilitates team collaboration, and,
Project Plan -Assign different tasks like a single task so
most importantly, ensures quality [9]. In view of fact that
to team members. does not need to 1
these methodologies explore risks at the start of projects
-Allocate timescales for break up the ser-
and in SOA necessary things of project manager is risk
each task. vice. If there are
handling, so project management, discipline of RUP can
many members then
easily incorporated in SOA practices. Comparatively SOA
each one can devel-
and RUP have common characteristics of SOA and RUP
op any service but
such as size of development team, level of documenta-
time scale is neces-
tion, development time and type of orientation. In Rup,
sary for completion
possible change to fit SOA is to concentrate on its archi-
of each service. So
tecture development [3]. Project management discipline
this plan will come
of RUP has some attention on people management, re-
in category-1.
source planning and estimation, escalation, and contact
management. Analysis of Use case is the major activity of
RUP [5]. As services are mostly loosely coupled so there
is no need of technical such type of management. I have
selected four options for coating RUP project manage-
ment which are: ‘3-category’ have highest value, ‘2-
category’ will be considered as middle level characteris-
JOURNAL OF COMPUTING, VOLUME 3, ISSUE 4, APRIL 2011, ISSN 2151-9617
RUP-PM Coating on
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SOA-PM

Catagory
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RUP-PM Coating on
SOA-PM

Catagory
-Setting dates for work In SOA projects,
4. RUP packages (milestones). there should be the
3
Phase Plan -Finding the skills of skill history of each In SOA risk can
-Risk avoidance: you
each member. member because resolved with the
8. RUP Risk are not exposed to the
-An idea of number of services may be of sharing of other 3
Control risk. stack holder or risk
iterations included in different types, so
-Risk transfer: finding can be mitigate
each phase and rough relevant members with the know-
other stakeholders to
dates for completion of for each service ledge, experiences
share the risk with.
each iteration. development or observations of
-Risk mitigation: reduc- project manager.
should be neces-
ing the impact of risk. Hence risk control
sary. Hence this -Contingency plane: procedure will
plan will come in come in category-3.
construct “what if”
category-3.
plans on the basis of
the risk
-Analysis, design, Analysis, design,
occurring.
5. RUP implementation, dep- implementation,
Iteration Plan loyment, test and eval- deployment, test 1 -Some measurement we As finally SOA
uation for each activity and evaluation for natured project is
9.Metrics in can make of a product
should be established each service is also transfer to product 3
RUP or process in the overall (integration of all
and decomposing large necessary but due
development process. services) at the
tasks into sub tasks. to loosely coupled
Broad categories of implementation
-Under the develop- nature, services are time so knowledge
metrics are
ment, there should be independent so no and achievement
-Knowledge oriented oriented metrics
plane for next iteration need a plan for next
metrics: These are can also be meas-
and possible scheduling iteration. All or
evaluation, prediction ured in SOA
of a task. some services can projects. Hence
and monitoring the
-Identification of de- be developed at the these measure-
process. ments will come in
pendencies between the same time. Hence
-Achievement oriented category-3.
tasks and make an this plane is come
metrics: these are mea-
estimate for efforts of in category-1.
surement of some
each task.
product aspect.

-An undesirable event, Unwanted event

6. Project An estimate of the can also occur at
3
Risk severity of the conse- deployment and
Above table, Table-1 is showing that how SOA-PM can
quences of the event. implementation
achieve the work of RUP-PM for successful project to con-
time and a service
trol and mitigate risks. By taking the values of category
can also be effected
from Table-1, we conclude the following table by assign-
with the other
ing values 1.5 to category 3, 1.0 to category-2, 0.5 to cate-
event. So project
gory-1 and 0.0 to category-0.
risk will come in
category 3.

Direct Risk: manager Just like RUP, in

7. Project
can handle up to some SOA project man-
risk Classifi-
cation extent. ager can take atten- 3
Indirect risk: these are tion on direct risk
out of manager influ- and indirect risk
ence. can be avoided. So
Indirect risk is some Project risk classi-
time avoided in RUP fication procedure
when possible. will come in cate-
gory 3.
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Table-2: Assiging Values to Different Categories.

S.No Activities Category Values

1 Risk 2 1.0
2 Metrics 2 1.0
3 Iterative Procedures 3 1.5
4 Project Plan 1 0.5
5 Phase Plan 3 1.5
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