The Synergy Process

The Synergy Process, which is based on iterative, incremental software development, combines with an implementation project plan that is your road map pinpointing the stepping-stones you must follow to ensure your project's success. Why do I present the Synergy Process at all? The primary reason is that some readers are not interested in having to buy anything additional to better their chances of successful project development. This is fine, of course, and the Synergy Process will fit the bill.

What Synergy lacks are the many guidelines and “how-tos” that the Unified Process has to offer. As a result, I will briefly present it here but cover it in more detail in Appendix B. In this book the Unified Process will be the process that guides our steps from project inception to coding.

Figure 1-7 previews the Synergy Process model. The boxes (e.g., “Release Cycle” and “Project Scope”) represent categories of activities or processes. Although they are linked via a sample flow of order, recall that some tasks might be performed earlier or later, depending on a project's needs.

The vertical bars labeled “Inception,” “Elaboration,” “Construction,” and “Transition” represent the project's phases. Notice that the Inception bar slices through the “Use-Case Analysis” and “Preliminary Models” boxes. This depicts graphically that early in the project's lifecycle we will fly by, or iterate through, some of these activities to estimate the duration and cost of our project.