This role is a support role in RUP. Its main goal is to equip the project team with an appropriate development process, and to make sure that the team members are not hindered in doing their jobs.
Role Sets: Production & Support
Relationships
Modifies
Change Request
Development Process
Process Usage
Environment > Prepare Environment for an Iteration > Process Engineer
Environment > Prepare Environment for Project > Process Engineer
Test > Improve Test Assets > Process Engineer
Main Description
Process Engineers play an important part of any management team of a software project. The role is responsible for all
process related aspects of the project, such as :
Tailoring the process to match the specific needs of the project.
Educating and mentoring project members on process related issues.
Ensuring that valuable project experience is harvested and fed back into the process.
Assisting the Project Manager in planning the project.
Illustrations
Examples
A Small Project Adopts RUP
Staffing
Skills
It is important for a person playing the Process Engineer role to have an in-depth understanding of the underlying
process definition to be able to make informed choices about its configuration. Ideally, a person playing this role
should have had multiple experiences working on software projects that used RUP as the software development process,
and should understand the various considerations to be made when tailoring RUP to suit the context of a specific
software project.
The appropriate skills and knowledge for the Process Engineer role include:
First hand knowledge of the structure of the RUP, and of the supporting tool set for creating customized processes.
Good communication skills to be able to present the process to the teams and to encourage individual team members
to provide feedback to improve the process.
Assignment Approaches
The Process Engineer role can be assigned in the following ways:
Assign the person filling the Project Manager role to the Process Engineer role. This is a common approach for
small teams and for teams where there are no dedicated process engineering resources available.
For larger organizations, individuals filling this role are often part of a process group that defines
organizational configurations and act as process mentors on projects.
It is common practice for organizations new to the RUP and iterative development to look for resources outside
the company for filling this role for the first RUP driven projects.
More Information
Concepts
A Comparison of RUP and XP
Agile Practices and RUP
Implementing a Process in a Project
Mentoring
The Ten Essentials of RUP
Using the RUP for Small Projects: Expanding Upon eXtreme Programming
Whitepapers
A Comparison of RUP and XP
Agile Practices and RUP
Implementing a Process in a Project
Mentoring
The Ten Essentials of RUP
Using the RUP for Small Projects: Expanding Upon eXtreme Programming