UML standards guide / Best Practices [closed]

Question

Does anyone know of a decent UML standards guide?

My company currently relies on UML 2.0 (rightly or wrongly) to do the majority (read all) of their design work. I have been asked to come up with a draft 'best practice' guide to help other developers develop better models. The main problem I face is that Im slightly biased against UML... I feel that: if a diagram takes more than 5 mins to draw then its too complicated! Im looking for advice predominantly on what sort of standards I should be looking at. Also Im looking for an external source of information that can be used to balence out my irrational loathing of UML-heavy design and act as a 'sanitizer' for my suggestions.

Most of all Im looking to write a useful document rather than one that will sit moulding away in some obscure network directory.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

UML Distilled by Martin Fowler

Answer 2

Like Paul C, I recommend UML Distilled. It is primarily about UML, but it contains a lot of insight about design in general (although it insists a bit too much on index cards IMO), it is short, pleasant to read, and to the point.

I strongly recommend against UML in a Nutshell. It is the worst O'Reilly book I have: insanely dense, hard to read and meandering. Not worth the paper it is printed on.