USDP application: cutting out a sustainable process for the public local administration

We present the earliest results of a research work, which has started two years ago with the primary goal to get the best useful implementation of the unified software development process for business applications, taking in our mind the real-world needs of local public administrations in central Italy. In particular, we have focused on requirements capturing and analysis, considered to be responsible for 70% of overall failure of software projects (Standish Group). The iterative and incremental principles of the unified process has been applied, at first, to learn UML and the USDP guidelines, then to define the detailed implementation of the development process itself and, finally, to perform an analysis and an object oriented design, staying close to customers requirements. These conclusions are positive and encouraging. They also highlight a successful application of these processes, in which the mentor plays a key-role, whereas activities and artifacts must be tailored as appropriate to the application size and customer features.