Tool Mentor:
Developing a Process Model Using Rational Process Workbench
Purpose
This tool mentor describes how to define new process elements in addition
to those elements already defined in the Process Model found in the Rational
Unified Process (RUP) and how to derive new process elements from existing
RUP elements.
This tool mentor relates to the RUP information:
Overview
Rational Process Workbench (RPW) uses the Rational Rose workspace to develop process
models and includes the process model for the RUP. A common way
to customize
the RUP is to exclude one or more of its disciplines and to add custom-defined disciplines that
will exist
in parallel to those disciplines defined in the RUP. Other types of
customization occur at more detailed levels, where you modify individual Roles,
Activities, and Artifacts to better suit your needs.
Tool Steps
To develop a process model, proceed as follows:
- Define new process elements
- Derive new process elements from existing elements
- Create variation
points in your process model
- Replace Activities
- Replace Workflow Details
Any customization of the RUP you make needs to be
maintained in your own process model. When you work inside of your process
model, you use the notation supported by the RPW to
define new process elements that support your specific process needs.
See Chapter 2, " Modeling elements and principles" in the Developing Process Using Rational Process Workbench manual.
Defining new process elements is a general-purpose, object-oriented,
modeling exercise that uses the specific process modeling concepts the RPW has
introduced in the Rose
workspace.
 Refer
to the topic titled Defining new process elements in the Rational Process
Workbench online Help for detailed
information.
If you have the process model from the RUP in your Rose workspace, in parallel to your own process model, you can reuse
existing process elements in the context of your customization. For example, you
can create a derived role from one of the RUP roles and
extend it with additional activities. The resulting derived role assumes the
activities of both the RUP role and the new ones. You would
want to do this to reuse existing definitions without having to recreate them, as well as being able to use them in their original context.
This technique applies when you want to reuse elements within the same process
model also. Refer
to the topic titled Deriving new process elements from existing elements in
the RPW online Help for detailed
information.
RPW supports the use of interfaces to create variation points in your
process model. A variation point is a
point in your model that can assume any variant of its construct, provided it
obeys the contract of the variation point and leaves the remaining model
intact. As modeling elements, interfaces provide the specification perspective
of such constructs, behind which its variation occurs. Variation points can be
formed around the process elements that are modeled using the class construct
Roles, Artifacts, Disciplines, and Tools. Refer
to the topic titled Creating variation points in your process model in the
RPW online Help for detailed
information.
A common customization is to redefine existing activities to use and produce a different set of
Artifacts. The modeling technique used to achieve this is commonly referred to as
"operator overloading". In process modeling, this means that a new
Activity, with the same name but a different Artifact list, is modeled. The new
Activity can then substitute for the
existing activity in a process closure.
See the information under the heading "Using operator overloading"
found in Chapter 2 of the Developing Process Using Rational Process Workbench manual. Following our recommendation to
separate your process model from the one in the RUP, it
becomes necessary to create a new Role on which the replacing Activity can be
defined. This is where you use the inheritance construct to associate the new
Role with the original one; an association through which the new Role assumes
the original Role's other Activities and responsibilities. Refer
to the topic titled Replacing activities in the RPW online Help for detailed
information.
Another common customization is to replace existing Workflow Details with
new ones that have the same purpose, but
different definitions. You use operator overloading to replace Workflow
Details in the existing RUP. (See the step 4 for
details.)
A replacing Workflow Detail can have a different Activity overview, which
employs a different Activity set in a different way. To accommodate your
replacing Workflow Detail you need to create a new Discipline on which the new
Workflow Detail is created. Refer
to the topic titled Replacing workflow details in the RPW online Help for detailed
information.
For More Information 
For more information on basic modeling principles,
see Chapter 2, Modeling Elements and Principles in
the Developing Process Using Rational Process Workbench manual.
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© 1987 - 2001 Rational Software Corporation
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