Summary

• Building quality software in a repeatable and predictable fashion is hard.

• There are a number of symptoms of common software development problems, and these symptoms are the observable results of the root causes.

• To strike at the root causes of these software development problems, use software development best practices:

  - Develop software iteratively.

  - Manage requirements.

  - Use component-based architectures.

  - Visually model software.

  - Continuously verify software quality.

  - Control changes to software.

• The Rational Unified Process brings these best practices, and many others, together in a form that is suitable for a wide range of projects and organizations.