Roles and Artifacts

The Rational Unified Process expresses the analysis and design process in terms of roles, artifacts, activities, and workflow. Figure 10-1 shows the roles and artifacts involved. The main roles involved in analysis and design are the following:

• Software Architect

  The Software Architect leads and coordinates technical activities and artifacts throughout the project. He or she establishes the overall structure for each architectural view: the decomposition of the view, the grouping of elements, and the interfaces between the major groupings. In contrast with the views of the other roles, the architect's view is one of breadth rather than depth. See Chapter 5, An Architecture-centric Process.

• Designer

  The Designer defines the responsibilities, operations, attributes, and relationships of one or several classes and determines how they should be adjusted to the implementation environment. In addition, the designer may have responsibility for one or more design packages or design subsystems, including any classes owned by the packages or subsystems.

Figure 10-1. Roles and artifacts in analysis and design

Analysis and design can optionally include the following roles:

• Database Designer: The Database Designer is needed when the system being designed includes a database.

• Capsule Designer (for real-time systems): The Capsule Designer is a kind of designer who focuses on ensuring that the system is able to respond to events in a timely manner through appropriate use of concurrent design techniques.

• Architecture Reviewer and Design Reviewer: These specialists review the key artifacts produced through this workflow.

The key artifacts of analysis and design are as follows :

• The Design Model, which is the major blueprint for the system under construction

• The Software Architecture Document, which captures various architectural views of the system