Unified
process is one of the best
development processes we have of the iterative and incremental form. The whole
unified process is completed in four phases which have been mentioned below:
- Inception phase
- Elaboration phase
- Construction phase and lastly
- Transition phase
This
whole article is all about the last phase i.e., the transition phase. In this
whole article we are going to discuss about the last phase.
What is a Transition Phase?
- The final phase of
the unified process i.e., the transition phase involves the deployment of the
system for targeting the customers.
- The feedback that is collected on the
account of the previous releases helps in further refining or improving the
software system or application.
- It can
also be decided over the further functionality that have to be added to the
software system or application under development to make it much better.
- Transition phase like all of the preceding three phases is composed of several
timed iterations that are time boxed.
- Apart from just targeting the users, the
transition phase also involves user training and the system conversions.
- The
transition phase has been named so because it is in this phase that the
transition of the whole system from development to production takes
place and software is made available to the users.
- Along with the end users in some cases the
maintainers might also be treated.
- This phase also witnesses the beta testing
of the software system or application so that it is validated against the
expectations of the end users.
- A certain quality level is set in the phase
i.e., in the inception phase which is tested in against by the quality of the
software system or application in the transition phase.
- The point at which all
the objectives are met is called the “product release milestone”.
- At this point
the product is declared finished and the development is also declared to be
complete.
- The unified process is quite a robust software process that is meant
for addressing the development as well as the production needs of the users and
the customers.
- We need a software development process that serves the scope of
our real world quite well and provides us with a balanced perspective of the alternative
programming methodologies available from all around the field.
- In this
transition phase, if there are any legacy systems that you are going to replace,
then your whole software system or application is operated in parallel with
those legacy systems.
- This leads to the conversion of the legacy data bases and
the systems in to an improved one that supports your new software system or
application.
Goals of transition Phase
The transition phase has got three main goals as mentioned below:
1.Evolving the final product baseline or the production
base line of the software system or the application.
2.Training the materials for the software system or
application.
3.Creation of the documentation which is inclusive of all
the user manuals, operations documentation and the support documentation.
Issues faced during Transition Phase
- This phase is concluded with the product release milestone.
- Achieving
this milestone is not so easy since you have to satisfy all the expectations of
the end users and also justify the actual expenditures against the planned
expenditure.
- Issues such as finishing the features that were postponed usually arise
after the product has been transited to the end users or customers.
- The
production baseline ought to be mature enough to be deployed in the end user
domain.
- The operational data bases are also converted and the final product is
released for marketing, distribution and sales team.
