Employing the Unified Process for Developing a Web- Based Application – A Case-Study

Abstract. This paper describes the author's experience in applying the Unified Process (UP) to a mid-sized web-based application in cooperation with a small multi-media agency. The peculiarities of the project, which make it an optimal test-bed for exploration, are the project's non-time critical nature, its modest size, the curiosity and openness of all collaborators, and the author's opportunity to accompany the project from a first, vague idea up to the initial operation, and maintenance phase. Rather than documenting each step of the UP, the paper focuses on selected steps and artifacts, discusses the strong and the weak points of the UP as perceived in the concrete project and tries to draw some generalized hypotheses. The paper further touches some key issues of a situational project management style. The case study encourages the use of a tailored version of the UP, given essential preconditions concerning the project and the project team are being met.