About UCM projects and streams

When your work team uses UCM, your project manager creates a UCM object called a project. The project is established using one of the following models.

Multiple-stream
You access source files in a private work area. No one can see your changes. You cannot see others' changes. When you complete your changes, you make your work available to others in a shared work area. Periodically, you have to update your private work area with the latest changes from the shared work area.

In multiple-stream development, a relatively large number of individuals works in isolation in their own streams. Team members control when changes of other team members are visible and are responsible for integrating their changes with those of other team members.

Single-stream
You access source files from a work area that you share with your team members and work on those files in a private area. You can save your changes in your private area so that other team members cannot see them. However, when your changes are ready to be made available, others can see those changes immediately and can access those files to make their own changes.

In single-stream development, a small number of individuals work relatively closely in a simplified work environment. In this model, isolation is minimal and integration is fairly rapid because team members do not have to perform an explicit integrate action.