Unified Process Characteristics[edit]
Iterative and Incremental[edit]
Diagram illustrating how the relative emphasis of different disciplines changes over the course of the project
The Unified Process is an iterative and incremental development process. The Elaboration, Construction and Transition phases are divided into a series of timeboxed iterations. (The Inception phase may also be divided into iterations for a large project.) Each iteration results in an increment, which is a release of the system that contains added or improved functionality compared with the previous release.
Although most iterations will include work in most of the process disciplines (e.g. Requirements, Design, Implementation, Testing) the relative effort and emphasis will change over the course of the project.
Architecture Centric[edit]
The Unified Process insists that architecture sit at the heart of the project team's efforts to shape the system. Since no single model is sufficient to cover all aspects of a system, the Unified Process supports multiple architectural models and views.
One of the most important deliverables of the process is the executable architecture baseline which is created during the Elaboration phase. This partial implementation of the system serves to validate the architecture and act as a foundation for remaining development.