The purposes of this delivery process are to:

• Offer process guidance for small-scale projects
• Allow project managers to create project plans based on the proposed work breakdown structures
• Allow project managers to track status based on goals
• Allow team members to understand how to perform their work to achieve project goals
• Provide a complete, end-to-end delivery process that serves as an example for defining alternative delivery processes

OpenUP/Basic is an iterative process with iterations distributed throughout four phases: Inception, Elaboration, Construction, and Transition.

Each phase may have as many iterations as needed, depending on degree of novelty of the business domain, technology being used, architectural complexity, and project size, to name a few factors.

To offer a quick start for teams to plan their iterations, OpenUP/Basic provides work breakdown structure (WBS) templates for each iteration and a WBS template for an end-to-end process.

Iterations may have variable lengths, depending on project characteristics. One-month iterations are typically recommended, because this timeframe provides:

• A reasonable amount of time for projects to deliver meaningful increments in functionality
• Early and frequent customer feedback
• Timely management of risks and issues during the course of the project

OpenUP/Basic is intended to offer process guidance to small projects:

• 3 to 6 people on the team
• 3 to 6 months of work