Development Roles

Development roles form the foundation of every NUP project team. These roles are inherited from OpenUP and represent the core competencies needed to design, build, and test software solutions.

Core Development Roles

---

Analyst

The Analyst represents customer and end-user concerns by gathering input from stakeholders to understand the problem to be solved and by capturing and setting priorities for requirements.

Primary Responsibilities

• Gather and analyze requirements from stakeholders
• Define the vision and scope of the system
• Document use cases and supporting requirements
• Prioritize requirements based on business value
• Maintain the glossary of domain terms

Tasks

Additional Tasks

• Assess Results
• Create Test Cases
• Design the Solution
• Implement Test Scripts
• Manage Iteration
• Outline the Architecture
• Plan Iteration
• Plan Project

Artifacts

Skills Required

Essential Skills:

• Expertise in identifying and understanding problems and opportunities
• Ability to articulate needs associated with key problems
• Effective collaboration through workshops and JAD sessions
• Strong verbal and written communication
• Knowledge of business and technology domains

Assignment Approaches:

• On small teams, this role is often shared among team members
• One or more team members perform this role exclusively for complex requirements
• Can be combined with the Tester role for smaller teams

---

Architect

The Architect is responsible for defining the software architecture, making key technical decisions that constrain the overall design and implementation of the project.

Primary Responsibilities

• Define the software architecture
• Make key technical decisions
• Document architecturally significant views
• Balance stakeholder concerns
• Reduce technical risks
• Organize team around the architecture

Tasks

Additional Tasks

• Assess Results
• Define Vision
• Design the Solution
• Detail Requirements
• Find and Outline Requirements
• Manage Iteration
• Plan Iteration
• Plan Project

Artifacts

Main Description

This role leads or coordinates the technical design of the system and has overall responsibility for facilitating the major technical decisions expressed as software architecture. This typically includes identifying and documenting the architecturally significant aspects of the system as views that describe requirements, design, implementation, and deployment.

This role is also responsible for providing the rationale for these decisions, balancing the concerns of the various stakeholders, reducing technical risks, and ensuring that decisions are effectively communicated, validated, and followed.

Skills Required

Essential Skills:

• Experience in both problem and software engineering domains
• Leadership ability to motivate and make critical decisions under pressure
• Excellent communication skills to earn trust and persuade
• Goal-oriented and proactive orientation with focus on results

Technical Traits:

• Tends to be a generalist rather than specialist
• Makes broader technical decisions
• Demonstrates broad knowledge and experience

Assignment Approaches:

• Should be engaged in the project from start to finish
• On smaller projects, may also act as Project Manager
• Works closely with Project Manager to organize the team

---

Developer

The Developer is responsible for developing a part of the system, including designing it to fit the architecture, prototyping the user interface, implementing, unit-testing, and integrating components.

Primary Responsibilities

• Design solution components
• Implement code according to architecture
• Write and run developer tests
• Integrate changes and create builds
• Ensure DevOps involvement

Tasks

Additional Tasks

• Assess Results
• Create Test Cases
• Detail Requirements
• Find and Outline Requirements
• Implement Test Scripts
• Manage Iteration
• Outline the Architecture
• Plan Iteration
• Plan Project
• Refine the Architecture

Artifacts

Skills Required

Essential Skills:

• Create technical solutions in the project's technology
• Understand and conform to the architecture
• Build developer tests covering required behavior
• Communicate design to other team members
• UML modeling ability (for visual design)

Assignment Approaches:

• On small teams, the role is often shared among team members
• Multiple developers should work together on the solution
• Can have specialized skills but needs broad understanding

---

Tester

The Tester is responsible for the core activities of the test effort: identifying, defining, implementing, and conducting tests, as well as logging outcomes and analyzing results.

Primary Responsibilities

• Identify tests that need to be performed
• Select appropriate test implementation approaches
• Implement individual tests
• Set up and execute tests
• Log outcomes and verify test execution
• Analyze and recover from execution errors
• Communicate test results to the team

Tasks

Additional Tasks

• Assess Results
• Design the Solution
• Detail Requirements
• Find and Outline Requirements
• Implement Developer Tests
• Implement the Solution
• Manage Iteration
• Plan Iteration
• Plan Project

Artifacts

Skills Required

Core Skills:

• Knowledge of testing approaches and techniques
• Diagnostic and problem-solving skills
• Knowledge of the system being tested (desirable)
• Knowledge of networking and system architecture (desirable)

For Automated Testing:

• Training in test automation tools
• Experience using test automation tools
• Programming skills
• Debugging and diagnostic skills

Assignment Approaches:

• One or more testing staff perform this role
• Can be combined with other roles on small teams
• May be separated based on automation experience levels

---

Role Interactions

Collaboration Flow

Communication Matrix

---

Role Assignment by Project Size

Small Team (3-5 members)

Medium Team (6-10 members)

Large Team (10+ members)

---

Development Role Artifacts Map

---

Best Practices

For Analysts

• Engage stakeholders early and often
• Use multiple elicitation techniques
• Validate requirements with testable criteria
• Maintain traceability throughout

For Architects

• Focus on architecturally significant requirements first
• Document decisions and rationale
• Validate architecture through prototyping
• Communicate consistently with all teams

For Developers

• Follow coding standards consistently
• Write tests before or alongside code
• Integrate frequently
• Participate in code reviews

For Testers

• Start test planning early
• Automate regression tests
• Report defects with sufficient detail
• Track test coverage metrics

Related Resources

• Roles Overview
• Architecture Roles
• Activities
• Code Reviews

---

Compliance

This section fulfills ISO 13485 requirements for responsibility and authority (5.5.1) and human resources (6.2), and ISO 27001 requirements for security roles (A.5.2), secure development (A.8.25), and security testing (A.8.29).

View full compliance matrix