Developing a project, especially a complex project, is a difficult job. There are many tasks to be done: agree with the client on the project's vision, understand the workflow of the main processes , define user requirements, design a data model that captures all relevant data, design software that meet the requirements, design the hardware architecture, develop the software and, of course, producing suitable deliverables.

All these different activities in order to be successfully accomplished, require different experts: process designer, software designer, hardware designer, data model designer, project manager and many others. Usually each expert uses its language and formalism (for example a data modeler will use E-R diagram, while a process modeler will use work flow diagram). This may cause major problems when information must flow between different teams because concepts (even the same concepts) must be translated to the proper team formalism. The creation of a unified language and a unified way of modeling can resolve these problems. The answer to this is Unified Modeling Language (UML). The UML emerged from the unification that occurred in the 1990s following the "method wars" of the 1970s and 1980s to gain significant industry support from various organizations via the UML Partners Consortium and be submitted to and adopted by the OMG as a standard (November 17, 1997). The UML is the modeling language for specifying, visualizing, constructing, and documenting the artifacts of a system-intensive process.

Below you will find some presentation that will help you understanding the importance of adopting a unified language such as UML.

The importance of modeling

An overview on the language

A quick tour on Rational Rose