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  <mainDescription>&lt;p>&#xD;
    A&amp;nbsp;&lt;a class=&quot;elementLink&quot;&#xD;
    href=&quot;./../../../core.default.uma_concept.base/guidances/termdefinitions/practice_94B5C550.html&quot;&#xD;
    guid=&quot;_wxYvkMaGEduMlb2cQZNTYw&quot;>practice&lt;/a>&amp;nbsp;is a documented approach to solving one or several commonly occurring&#xD;
    problems. Practices are intended as &quot;chunks&quot; of process for adoption, enablement, and configuration. Practices are&#xD;
    built from the basic method elements.&amp;nbsp; For more information on these elements, see &lt;a class=&quot;elementLinkWithType&quot;&#xD;
    href=&quot;./../../../core.default.uma_concept.base/guidances/concepts/basic_process_concepts_C90EF089.html&quot;&#xD;
    guid=&quot;_FxJEkFUKEd2_rMtRMt_EMg&quot;>Concept: Basic Process Concepts&lt;/a>.&amp;nbsp; Practices can be informally document through&#xD;
    one white paper, or formally documented through a combination of training courses, tutorials, process content,&#xD;
    redbooks, etc.&amp;nbsp; Practices provide one-stop-shopping for relevant content&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;h3>&#xD;
    Why Practices?&#xD;
&lt;/h3>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    Practices enable a new approach to building methods - practice composition.&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    This approach offers the following benefits:&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;ul>&#xD;
    &lt;li>&#xD;
        Focused on business results&#xD;
    &lt;/li>&#xD;
    &lt;li>&#xD;
        Reusability, adaptability and scalability&#xD;
    &lt;/li>&#xD;
    &lt;li>&#xD;
        Incremental adoption&#xD;
    &lt;/li>&#xD;
    &lt;li>&#xD;
        Easy to configure and use&#xD;
    &lt;/li>&#xD;
    &lt;li>&#xD;
        Community development&#xD;
    &lt;/li>&#xD;
&lt;/ul>&#xD;
&lt;h3>&#xD;
    Focused on Business Results&#xD;
&lt;/h3>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    Practices &lt;em>&lt;strong>focus on results&lt;/strong>&lt;/em> (provided capabilities and resulting work products). They&#xD;
    translate ideas into action and deliver high value. Practices are refined based on experiences and lessons learned&#xD;
    (“practice makes perfect!”).&amp;nbsp; Practices focus on what matters (e.g., what practices should we use to meet our&#xD;
    business objectives vs what process is &quot;best&quot;).&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    A practice has a &lt;strong>&lt;em>positive impact on one or several business objectives&lt;/em>&lt;/strong> (e.g., Time-to-Market,&#xD;
    Improve Quality, Increase Innovation, etc.).&amp;nbsp; The adoption of a practice, and it’s impact on business objectives,&#xD;
    can be effectively &lt;em>&lt;strong>measured&lt;/strong>.&lt;/em>&lt;br />&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;h3>&#xD;
    Reusability, Adaptability and Scalability&#xD;
&lt;/h3>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    A practice is a &lt;strong>&lt;em>reusable&lt;/em>&lt;/strong> and &lt;strong>&lt;em>scalable&lt;/em>&lt;/strong> process package that&amp;nbsp;may&#xD;
    be general, domain-specific, technique-specific, organization-specific, etc. Practices can be extended/enhanced by&#xD;
    other practices and/or techniques.&amp;nbsp; Practices can be adapted to&amp;nbsp;support a range of solutions.&amp;nbsp;In&#xD;
    particular, practices can be adapted to suit your organization and supplemented by your own practices.&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    The core practices are the open source EPF Practices.&amp;nbsp;These practices are based on a common framework that allows&#xD;
    them to be composed.&amp;nbsp; The core practices&amp;nbsp;are tool-agnostic, low-ceremony practices that can be extended to&#xD;
    address a broad variety of development concerns, such as SOA, geographical distribution, model-driven architecture and&#xD;
    embedded systems. Tool and technology specific guidance can be added, such as guidance on J2EE, and a variety of&#xD;
    development tools. Some of these extensions can be quite modest, adding&amp;nbsp;for example&amp;nbsp;just tool specific&#xD;
    guidance to existing tasks, while others can be comprehensive, defining processes that provide a radically expanded&#xD;
    scope with new or altered artifacts, new or altered tasks, and new or altered roles.&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    Extensions and additions to&amp;nbsp;the practices&amp;nbsp;can be:&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;ul>&#xD;
    &lt;li>&#xD;
        used internally by an organization&#xD;
    &lt;/li>&#xD;
    &lt;li>&#xD;
        open sourced as a part of the EPF project&#xD;
    &lt;/li>&#xD;
    &lt;li>&#xD;
        sold commercially as an extension to the basic framework, such as the IBM(R) Practices.&#xD;
    &lt;/li>&#xD;
&lt;/ul>&#xD;
&lt;h3>&#xD;
    Incremental Adoption&#xD;
&lt;/h3>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    A practice is a component or aspect of a process that can be &lt;strong>&lt;em>adopted independently&lt;/em>&lt;/strong>&#xD;
    &lt;strong>&lt;em>and incrementally&lt;/em>&lt;/strong> by an organization to build an organizational capability. Practices support&#xD;
    easier adoption of lighter processes.&amp;nbsp; Organizations only use what they really need. They can adopt one or a few&#xD;
    practice at a time and/or adopt a practice at higher levels over time (evolutionary and incremental&#xD;
    adoption).&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    Incremental adoption is supported by the&amp;nbsp;fact that&amp;nbsp;each practice is described as a standalone&#xD;
    capability&amp;nbsp;and&amp;nbsp;provides one-stop-shopping for all collateral related to the practice -- e.g.,&amp;nbsp; courses,&#xD;
    tool features, services, articles, process content, enactment, etc.&amp;nbsp;&amp;nbsp;&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;h3>&#xD;
    Easy to Configure and Use&#xD;
&lt;/h3>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    Practices are designed to be &lt;strong>&lt;em>interchangeable&lt;/em>&lt;/strong>, they may be mixed and matched or swapped out&#xD;
    for alternative practices. Practice-based techniques recognize that &quot;one-size fits all&quot; is too limiting for&#xD;
    processes.&amp;nbsp; Practices allow alternatives.&amp;nbsp; Creating a method is as simple as selecting the practices that you&#xD;
    wish to adopt, and then publishing the results.&amp;nbsp;Each practice adds itself into the framework so that content can&#xD;
    be viewed by practice, or across practices by work product, role, task and so on.&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;h3>&#xD;
    Community Development&#xD;
&lt;/h3>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    Since a practice can be easily authored on its own, practices are ideal for community development.&amp;nbsp;The basic agile&#xD;
    practices for the&amp;nbsp;EPF Practices are, in fact, developed by the Eclipse Process Framework community.&amp;nbsp;&#xD;
&lt;/p>&#xD;
&lt;p>&#xD;
    Practices enable a&amp;nbsp;richer eco-system as it is easier to develop an individual&amp;nbsp;practice than to author an&#xD;
    entire method.&#xD;
&lt;/p></mainDescription>
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