OUM – Oracle Unified Method

As you know Oracle is shifting its approach from Waterfall model to Spiral model ( iterative and incremental development ) , in same line , Oracle is now promoting OUM and moving away from AIM,

The Oracle  Unified Method (OUM) is Oracle’s standards based method that enables the entire Enterprise Information Technology (IT) lifecycle.  OUM provides an implementation approach that is rapid, broadly adaptive, and business focused.  OUM includes a comprehensive project and program management framework and materials to support Oracle’s growing focus on enterprise-level IT strategy, architecture, and governance.

http://www.oracle.com/us/products/consulting/resource-library/oracle-unified-method-069204.pdf

http://www.oracle.com/partners/campaign/eblasts/retirement-aim-adv-bus-flows-185418.html

Retirement of Oracle Application Implementation Method (AIM) Advantage and Oracle AIM for Business Flows Planned for January 31, 2011

RETIREMENT OF ORACLE AIM ADVANTAGE AND ORACLE AIM FOR BUSINESS FLOWS 
As of the January 31, 2011 retirement date:

• AIM Advantage and AIM for Business Flows delivery, training, and collateral will be removed from the Oracle PartnerNetwork (OPN).
• Additionally, Oracle will no longer provide support for AIM Advantage or AIM for Business Flows.

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AIM (Applications Implementation Methodology)

OUM (Oracle Unified Method)

OUM is Oracle's Method Integration Strategy. It supports methods currently being used by Oracle customers including - Compass, AIM, ABF, Siebel. OUM has been developed as a single, integrated method to support the entire Oracle ecosystem and across the complete suite of Oracle products. The aim is to decommission all legacy methods as every Oracle product group transitions to OUM. OUM is product and technology agnostic. Oracle is evolving the Oracle Unified Method (OUM) to achieve the vision of supporting the entire Enterprise IT Lifecycle, including support for the successful implementation of every Oracle product. OUM replaces Legacy Methods, such as AIM Advantage, AIM for Business Flows, EMM Advantage, PeopleSoft's Compass, and Siebel's Results Roadmap.

OUM provides an implementation approach that is rapid, broadly adaptive, and business-focused. OUM includes a comprehensive project and program management framework and materials to support Oracle's growing focus on enterprise-level IT strategy, architecture, and governance.

While implementing an Oracle ERP system to a client, to meet the client requirements a consultant needs to make changes to original Vanila system (Unchanged Oracle ERP Implemented system). The changes made to Original Oracle ERP comes under RICE components.

                                                          RICE

During an implementation, development of RICE components involves:
1. Creation of Reports that are not available as standard reports in the oracle apps modules.
2. Creation of the Interfaces to external systems.
3. Creation of Conversion programs to transfer data from a legacy system to the new system.
4. Enhancements (or extensions) to the existing system to add additional functionality to existing system without disturbing the core software functionality of the system.

RICE terminology has been introduced by Oracle Corporation and later some Oracle consultants has added their own flavor and introduced some other terminologies like FRICE and RICEW.

FRICE stands for Forms, Reports, Interfaces, Conversions and Enhancements / Extensions

RICEW stands for Reports, Interfaces, Conversions, Enhancements / Extensions and Workflows

Documenting terminology for RICE components
AIM (Applications Implementation Methodology) is documenting structure introduced by Oracle Corporation which is used through out the life cycle of a RICE component object. Process in AIM methodology includes approval to develop, functional design specification, technical design specification, coding, testing and implementation.

                                                            CEMLI
later in 2007, in Release 12 Oracle corporation has extended the RICE components and introduced a new terminology called CEMLI components.

CEMLI is an ERP software extension framework provided in Oracle Applications by Oracle Corporation. 

CEMLI Stands for Configurations/Customization, Extension, Modification, Localization, and Integration.

"Oracle defined the CEMLI Framework, which translates into 20 classes of extensions that customers can add to their Oracle systems."

The framework was established by Oracle On Demand to categorize customizations, meaning software that had to be added by the customer or implementer to the Oracle applications.

Configurations : Configure the existing, pre-built application features according to your client’s requirement.Changing setups and profile values can be the example of configurations.

Customization : Customization means altering/changing the standard objects or creation of custom object to meet client’s business need. It may be Extensions or Modifications.

Extensions : Extension means creating custom code from scratch, existing objects (views, packages and java classes etc) can be used. It is having different behaviour from seeded one.

Modifications : Modifications is enhancing/changing the existing code to meet the client’s requirements. It is the modification of seeded behaviour.

Localization : It is to define the different legislative support provided by oracle Applications based on country/region/language requirements.

Integration : It can be Data Integration or Application Integration, options for these two are Open Interface tables, APIs, EAI(Enterprise Application Integration Tools), BPEL, AQ, EDI etc.

OUM (Oracle Unified Method) which is introduced by Oracle corporation after 2007 to standardize the documentation process for almost all products from oracle which includes Business Intelligence (BI) and Enterprise Performance Management (EPM), WebCenter, Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA), Application Integration Architecture (AIA), Business Process Management (BPM), Enterprise Integration and Custom Software.

OUM Project Phases : 

The Workflows within an OUM project are categorized into five phases: Inception, Elaboration, Construction, Transition, and Production. These phases are described below:

(A) Phase I: Inception :As the first phases in the project life cycle.Major goal of this phase is to achieve concurrence among all stakeholders on the lifecycle objectives for the project. Kick off's, review , high-level business requirements along with initial project plan is being targeted in this phase only.

(B) Phase II: Elaboration :This is the second phases in the project life cycle, where major focus would be to develop the detailed requirements models, partition the solution, develop functional prototyping, and baseline the architecture of the system.

(C) Phase III: Construction :As the third phases in the project life cycle, Construction focuses on design, implementation, and testing of functions to develop a complete system.

(D) Phase IV: Transition :This typically consist from installation onto the production system through the UAT and launch of the live application, open and ready for business.

(E) Phase V: Production : The goal of the Production phase is to operate the newly developed system, assess the success of the system, and support the users. This includes: monitoring the system; acting appropriately to ensure continued operation; measuring system performance; operating and maintaining supporting systems; responding to help requests, error reports and feature requests by users; and managing the applicable change control process so that defects and new features are prioritized and assigned to future releases.

ID	Task	Work Product	Template
Objectives
RD.001	Detail Business and System Objectives	Business and System  Objectives	Business and System  Objectives
Document Requirements
RD.005	Create System Context Diagram	System Context Diagram	System Context Diagram
RD.011	Develop Future Process Model	Future Process Model	Future Process Model
RD.030	Develop Current Business Process Model	Current Process Model	Current Process Model
RD.045	Prioritize Requirements (MoSCoW)	MoSCoW List	MoSCoW List-Excel, MoSCoW List-Word, Generic Workshop Notes, Generic Workshop Schedule, and Workshop Preparation Notes
RD.065	Develop Domain Model (Business Entities)	Domain Model	Domain Model
RA.023	Develop Use Case Model	Use Case Model	Use Case Model, Visio Template and Stencil
RA.024	Develop Use Case Details	Use Case Specification	Use Case Specification
Map Requirements
AN.010	Map Business Requirements	Mapped Business Requirements	Validated Functional Prototype
AN.020	Define and Estimate Application Extensions	Application Extension Definition and Estimates	Refer to the Task Overview for  guidance.
AN.030	Define Gap Resolutions	Gap Resolutions	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
IM.010	Develop Functional Prototype	Functional Prototype	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
RA.085	Validate Functional Prototype	Validated Functional Prototype	Validated Functional Prototype
Configure
DS.010	Define Business Data Structure Setups	Business Data Structure Setups	Business Data Structure Setups
RA.040	Define Business Data Structures	Business Data Structures	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
DS.030	Define Application Setups	Application Setup Documents	Application Setup Documents
Analyze and Design Components
AN.050	Analyze Data	Data Analysis	Analysis Model
AN.060	Analyze Behavior	Behavior Analysis	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
AN.090	Analyze User Interface	User Interface Analysis	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
DS.080	Design Software Components	Software Component Design	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
DS.090	Design Data	Component Data Design	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
DS.100	Design Behavior Component	Behavior Design	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
DS.130	Design User Interface	User Interface Design	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
DS.150	Develop Database Design	Logical Database Design	Logical Database Design
Implement Components
IM.005	Develop Conceptual Prototype	Conceptual Prototype	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
IM.040	Implement Database	Implemented Database	Physical Database Design
IM.050	Implement Components	Implemented Components	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
IM.070	Assemble Components	Assembled Components	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
Integrate
IM.080	Integrate Services	Integrated Services	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
Test
TE.030	Perform Unit Test	Unit-Tested Components	Refer to the Task Overview for guidance.
TE.040	Perform Integration	Test Integration-Tested Components	Integration Test Results
TE.070	Perform System Test	System-Tested Applications	System Test Results
TE.100	Perform Systems Integration Test	Integration-Tested System	Systems Integration Test Results