I think the value discussion is tricky. I am convinced that we can create a 2,000 page process where every page adds value. It will be hard to say "This page as no value, or not enough value" when you have no baseline to measure against.
Good points where made about that you cannot just count page numbers, that say very little. But we also know that if you have too much information, few will read it, and it will be hard to find it. So, let's turn it to how I would like to be able to present OpenUP: ----- My future presentation----- OpenUP consists of a small, extensible but complete, base process, called OpenUP/Basic. OpenUP/Basic has a small kernel of 50 pages (18 tasks, 19 artifacts, 6 roles, each on an average of 1 page <plus structural info, but I do not count that>). We think that everybody in the project should have a rough understanding of these 50 pages, they create a shared baseline for our collaboration. OpenUP/Basic also provide 80 pages of additional guidelines, concepts etc, that provides some more meat for those that need it. To allow people to make practical use of OpenUP/Basic, we have added some examples and templates. This adds another 50 pages of material. Now, there are naturally tons of additional knowledge one can add to this knowledge base. We provide some of this knowledge as a series of plugins. For example, for those that want more information on Deployment or Agile Modeling can add plug-ins for those domains. In the same way, you can add content (plug-in) with content around MDD or a more rigourous and detailed requirements process. ---- End My future presentation----- ----An example of a bad presentation--------- We have some +500 pages of content, and it is all good stuff. You should read it. And you need it all. You might need even more, so you can add a lot of additional pages of content though plug-ins... ---- End An example of a bad presentation--------- Now, I understand that nobody would do the latter. I think we are close to the former, but we do not know, and that concerns me. What I really want to force happening is us having to figure out how to get a guideline on how to do use cases to be no more than 2 or 3 pages long. I can easily write something that is 10 pages long, and I can read books that are 200 pages long on use cases. But we MUST have a mechanism that forces us to carefully weigh every word. The best books in teh world are short and concise, such as the one-minute manager, and it is cumbersome to produce. My concern is NOT whether we end up with a 180 or 230 page process, but whether we are truly challenging ourself to be as concise as we ever could be, or we just choose to include the 10-page guideline because "it is all pretty good stuff" and we have no means of stating that it is too long... Hence, we will not force our self to write the best possible content as often as we should... Cheers Per Kroll STSM, Manager Methods: RUP / RMC Project Lead: Eclipse Process Framework Rational Software, IBM Corp (M) 408-219-2963 Jim Ruehlin/Irvine/[EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] 12/01/2006 10:53 AM Please respond to Eclipse Process Framework Project Developers List <[email protected]> To [email protected] cc Subject RE: [epf-dev] Discovered Size of OpenUP/Basic I agree with Brian in that the page count should mostly be used as a baseline so we can manage the size of the process going forward. There are some crudities in the count that, I think, make this page count high (final pages that are nearly blank, text that may be larger than what?s found in a book, task descriptors that duplicate information, a flexible navigation style that you can?t have in a book). However, it?s probably true that some people will look at the bulk and say we?re too heavy. At the least, we need to have an answer even if we don?t cut down the size. Moving sections into plug-ins is technically feasible, but in the end the published process will be the same size so I?m not sure if how well that would address those critics. Here?s something to think about: Schwaber?s ?Agile Project Management with Scrum? and Beck?s ?Extreme Programming Explained? are just over 150 pages each (including appendices and excluding the index). Scrum only addresses PM, and XP only addresses development. OpenUP/Basic addresses much more of the process. Take the 4 main areas of OpenUP/Basic (RM, PM, Architecture, and Development) and assign equivalent page lengths. 150 x 4 = 600 pages. Than add just 50 pages for CM and overarching stuff. So for OpenUP/Basic to be equivalent in size to the popular Agile books, it would need to be 650 pages long. So if we use two of the most popular Agile books as benchmarks, we?re still 100 pages ?lighter? than existing process descriptions, even with the conservative method we used to estimate the pages. - Jim ____________________ Jim Ruehlin, IBM Rational RUP Content Developer Eclipse Process Framework (EPF) Committer www.eclipse.org/epf email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] phone: 760.505.3232 fax: 949.369.0720 From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of "Brian Lyons" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 5:44 AM To: Eclipse Process Framework Project Developers List Subject: RE: [epf-dev] Discovered Size of OpenUP/Basic hiho, We have been sensitive to the element-count size of the process throughout the authoring effort and this has kept our eye on the ball with respect to making the process understandable. In a meeting on the Design the Solution task one person might mention ?what about a task for database design?? and someone else would pipe up with ?what about user experience?? The focus on keeping the process understandable kept us from blowing it out into something much larger?. element-count wise. Contrasting some recent posts, I do not discount the importance of keeping the scale down, page-count wise. We have an experienced, well-educated group of people as contributors here and at each step any one of us could wax poetic about the topic at hand. Understanding the size we have in front of us and the importance of having an understandable process should keep our eye on the ball, keeping us from adding fluff. Most people have experienced process descriptions in the form of books that are inherently quantifiable. It is reasonable to talk about the number of pages in this process; but in using that same measurement unit, we should make sure we are calculating it similarly. A book would not have so much space spent on the linkages that this process does. A book will not have each small topic start on a new page. Jim?s method provides a baseline that we can compare against as we move from 0.9 to 1.0. But I don?t think it provides a comparative number to process content that one might find in book form. I?d be interested in finding out how many pages of actual content someone would be expected to read and intellectually digest if they want to examine the process from end-to-end. We?ll have to find another means to calculate that. ----------- b From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Chris Armstrong Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 6:52 AM To: 'Eclipse Process Framework Project Developers List' Subject: RE: [epf-dev] Discovered Size of OpenUP/Basic I completely agree with Mark's perspective. We shouldn't be as concerned about size, but more about essential content. To Scott's point, it might not be a bad idea to consider refactoring content into multiple plugins, so for those organizations and teams that are concerned about size can control it (but we should probably get some feedback from the user community before we dive into it). One thing about Jim's page count to consider is that method content is re-published in the various descriptors used in the capability patterns and delivery process. This might artificially inflate the "actual" size of original content... Thanks, Chris ~:| From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Friday, December 01, 2006 4:14 AM To: Eclipse Process Framework Project Developers List Subject: Re: [epf-dev] Discovered Size of OpenUP/Basic I think we should worry less about the number of pages and more about the value of the content on each page. The number of pages will be artificially bloated by the page layout delivered by Composer. For example the Architecture work product covers two pages of printed paper but only delivers about half a page of text in a 12pt font. On a more general point, I am uncomfortable about the way recent discussions have focused on the size of the process, as if somehow smaller means more agile. I do not believe that agility is a function of the size of the process. It is a function of how people behave, not what the process does or does not explicitly document. I believe that it is important that OpenUP/Basic delivers value to it's users. I do not think that the primary audience for OpenUP/Basic is going to be projects made up of small teams of battle-hardened agile development veterans. Projects like that don't really need to refer to *any* written process. So who's our audience? Small teams of less experienced developers adopting new technologies and techniques? People who want to use the Unified Process but want a free alternative to RUP? I think so. If that is the case then OpenUP/Basic had better be delivering some real content - by which I means actual practices and guidance to help them reach a point where they don't need it anymore. That stuff consumes pages. And (if done right) delivers value. When deciding what to chop out of OpenUP/Basic, we need to make sure that we ask the question "does this content deliver value to our audience?" If the answer is yes and we are still at 542 pages, then I am ok with that. Cheers Mark Mark Dickson Principal Solution Architect SAE Practice m 0780 1917480 w www.xansa.com e [EMAIL PROTECTED] [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote: ----- To: "Eclipse Process Framework Project Developers List" <[email protected]> From: "Scott W. Ambler" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent by: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: 12/01/2006 03:49AM Subject: Re: [epf-dev] Discovered Size of OpenUP/Basic Seems to me that we need to cut it down dramatically. What material can we move out into separate plug-ins? - Scott On Thu, November 30, 2006 7:56 pm, Jim Ruehlin said: > The best estimate I have so far of the size of OpenUP/Basic is 542 pages > (8 ½ x 11). This is based on what's in CVS as of 11/29/06. This should > give us an initial benchmark for our OpenUP/Basic 1.0 scoping efforts. > > > I determined the size by creating a PDF of the entire website, doing a > breadth-first walk along the links starting with the Intro page. I didn? > t see anything missing, but I only made a cursory examination of the PDF > file. Glossary terms, templates, and examples are included in the page > count. Also, many web pages are longer than 8 ½ x 11, so this estimate > is based on a book layout, not a website layout. > > > - Jim > > > ____________________ > > Jim Ruehlin, IBM Rational > RUP Content Developer > Eclipse Process Framework (EPF) Committer www.eclipse.org/epf > email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] > phone: 760.505.3232 > fax: 949.369.0720 _______________________________________________ epf-dev mailing list [email protected] https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/epf-dev _______________________________________________ epf-dev mailing list [email protected] https://dev.eclipse.org/mailman/listinfo/epf-dev
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