What is inception?

Inception is the short initial step to establish a common vision and business case for the project.
It will include analysis of 10% of the use cases, analysis of the critical non-functional requirement, the creation of a business case, and preparation of the development environment.
Most projects require this short initial step in which the following kinds of questions are explored:

• What is the vision and business case for this project?
• Feasible?
• Buy and/or build?
• The rough unreliable range of cost: Is it $10K-100K or in the millions?
• Should we proceed or stop?

The purpose of the inception step to do just enough investigation to form a rational, justifiable opinion of the overall purpose and feasibility of the potential new system, and decide if it is worthwhile to invest.

How Long is Inception?

The inception phase should be relatively short for most projects, such as one or a few weeks long.
Note: Inception in one sentence: Envision the product scope, vision, and business case.

What Artifacts May Start in Inception?

Below table lists common inception artifacts and indicates the issues they address:

Artifact	Comment
Vision and Business Case	Describes the high-level goals and constraints, the business case, and provides an executive summary
Use-Case Model	Describes the functional requirements. During inception, the names of the most use cases will be identified, and only 10% of the use cases will be analyzed.
Supplementary Specification	Describes other requirements. Mostly non-functional requirements.
Glossary	Key domain terminology and data dictionary.
Risk List & Risk Management Plan	Describes the business, technical, resource, schedule risks, and ideas for their mitigation or response.
Prototypes and proof-of-concept	To clarify the vision and validate technical ideas.
Iteration Plan	Describes what to do in the first elaboration iteration.
Phase Plan & Software Development	Low-precision guess for elaboration phase duration and effort. Tools, people, education, and other resources.
Development Case	A description of the customized UP steps and artifacts for this
Table: Sample inception artifacts.

These artifacts are only partially completed in this phase. They will be iteratively refined in subsequent iterations.