Experience and best practices report from IBM GBS
There is a great new paper on Developer Works by my colleague Cécile Péraire that reports on how a group in IBM’s Global Business Services uses RMC to model process for CRM with localized differences. The paper shows a great case study for using variability and method configurations as well as gives recommendation for creating a content architecture and design patterns for solving problems such as variants and optimizing reuse.
Cécile Péraire, "Architecting IBM Global and Local Business Processes using Rational Method Composer", Rational Edge, Summer 2008.
Comments
Comment from Peter
Time: September 4, 2008, 8:46 am
Thanks for sharing, Joe. The idea is that the tool can grow on you. It is just like any other tool where you can start by just using the basics and then gradually using more of the features when your requirements grow. The simplest RMC site could just be your list of roles, common work products, and perhaps some whitepapers. What Cecile is describing is a very scaled approach of managing many possible sites with country-specific variants, where she chose to apply more of the formalisms RMC provides to optimize her reuse. Some people love these capabilities as it allows them to realize what they want to accomplish, others receive similar results in less “elegant” ways.
Comment from Sebastian
Time: October 17, 2008, 5:43 am
Very well written and interesting article by Cécile. The least, it showed me a better approach to organize my libraries.
Thanks for linking it here Peter. Otherwise I would have probably overlooked it in the infinite widths of the developerWorks.
@Joe: Don’t worry. I have neither a Ph.D. nor years of IBM Rational experience, but after a while of just using RMC, I got the hang of it.
Comment from Joe
Time: September 3, 2008, 11:40 am
To use RMC and its plug-ins, variability, method configuration,… like Cécile Péraire, you need a Ph.D. and years of IBM Rational experience.