Traditionally, if the system fails to meet the requirements as set out in the specification, it is the fault of the developers or, if the system meets the specification but is actually of little use to the business, it is the fault of the customers. It is rarely viewed as a joint responsibility.

Because of the technical nature of their work, IT staff use a language that is adapted for their particular needs. Similarly, the customers have their own jargon, which is often less arcane than that of IT but still creates a communications barrier.

DSDM uses collaborative techniques to surmount these problems. The strong focus on collaboration in DSDM projects enables a ‘no blame’ culture that eliminates much of the lack of understanding between customers and suppliers to create a win-win environment.

Collaborative approaches and mechanisms include:

1. Senior management commitment to strong and continuing business involvement during the project, i.e. customers as an integral part of development teams.
2. Facilitated workshops throughout the lifecycle (not just for requirements capture and reviews) to capture the broader business and technical views so achieving consensus at crucial steps in the process.
3. Evolutionary prototyping, i.e. partial system builds that are driven by and regularly reviewed by the customers.
4. Partitioning the responsibility for work products so that the knowledge of the team members is used. appropriately, e.g. the customer focus create help text that really means something to the users of the system.

From the above it is clear that the ability to collaborate changes the way people work and therefore introduces new responsibilities to all roles. This plug-in to OpenUP provides some help towards effective collaboration through the inclusion of the DSDM business roles and responsibilities that are relevant to OpenUP.