SDLC

Note: Every unit within SDLC interacts with Program/Project Management.  Every release of new and enhanced features and functionality requires the commitment and effort from all departments. 

An event associated with selected business gates where specific decisions concerning the project are made by appropriate levels of management.  Deviations in deliverables or timeframe are handled by convening the Gate 6 Review Board. This group will make any decisions concerning scope, cost, and schedule tradeoffs.  These business gates are:  

• G-11: Project Strategy Lock-Down  

• G-10: Requirements Scope Lock-Down  

• G-6: Project Lock-Down  

• G-4: Begin Validation  

• G-2: Begin FOA  

• G-0: General Availability  

• an individual feature
• a collection of features making a release
• a collection of product releases making up a portfolio
• a new product development

Contracting Organization

The Contracting Organization contracts with the performing organization to develop the product using a project discipline.  The Contracting Organization represents two departments: Product and Technical Support. 

Customer

A Customer is the individual or organization who will use the project product.  Note that there is a distinction for SDLC between the true customer and the Contracting Organization that acts as the customer’s representative within SDLC.

Office of the Chief Executive

The Office of the Chief Executive is the executive management team at SDLC.  They establish business strategy and commission projects.

Owner

The Owner oversees the completion of work at a gate.  They may be from the Product, Content, Technical Support, or Development areas depending on the project activities underway.  The Project Sponsor assigns owners at the beginning of a project.

Each gate has an Owner who is accountable for tracking the gate requirements, maintaining the status of the gate and taking corrective action to ensure that the gate is met in a timely manner.  The gate owner is also responsible for convening a meeting of the appropriate review board to approve passage of the gate. In the case of gates that have associated management phase reviews (see glossary), the gate owner convenes the review meeting and facilitates the decision making that is required at that gate.  In the event that an exception arises at a gate that does not have any associated management phase review, the owner is responsible for escalating the issue to the appropriate management phase review board for resolution.

Performing Organization

The Performing Organization is generally the Engineering Department.  The Engineering Department consists of Development (Sustaining, Advanced and Strategic), Validation/Quality Assurance, Operations (OCC, Release Engineering, Database Administration, Network, Unix, and Operations Engineering), Systems Engineering/Architecture and project management.

Program Manager

The Program Manager is the individual who oversees multiple projects that are related by a type of service delivery or by feature and functionality.  The Program Manager is accountable for the program and is empowered by the Office of the Chief Executive to make decisions affecting the successful outcome of the program.

The Program Manager takes an enterprise view.  The Program Manager is responsible for determining the schedule for deployment of company resources and achieving the objectives of a specific program.  The role includes the following additional responsibilities:

• Managing project managers

• Producing milestone progress reports

• Initiating issue and risk mediation

• Scheduling and conducting status meetings

  • Preparing status reports

  • Ensuring the project is on time, within budget program deliverables.

Program Management Office (PMO)

The Program Management Office (PMO) monitors, supports and reports on SDLC's programs and projects.  Program Managers provide defined periodic updates to the PMO.  The PMO consolidates the efforts of all programs and technology specific projects and delivers these reports to the OCE.

The PMO is responsible for issuing standards and guidelines for planning, tracking, and reporting, and for providing project support to individual project teams.  Accountability for project delivery will remain with the individual Project Manager and Program Manager.

Project Manager

The Project Manager is accountable for the project and must be empowered to make decisions affecting the successful outcome of the project responsible for managing a project.  This should not be confused with the project management function that exists within many organizations.

Project Managers are responsible for determining the deployment schedule for their specific project.  This role includes the following additional responsibilities:

• Reviewing progress reports

• Taking corrective action in problem solving

• Scheduling and conducting status meetings

• Preparing status reports

• Ensuring that change control procedures are being followed

Review Board

The Review Board is composed of representatives from both the Performing and Contracting Organizations, as well as the Project Sponsor, Project Manager and Program Manager.  Review Boards assess the deliverables at each gate in the System Development Life Cycle to insure that requirements have been met.  Also, the Review Board’s specific knowledge of the project’s goals and status allow it to make informed decisions to which they are held accountable.

Milestone/Gate reviews provide the mechanism for the management of the Performing Organization and the Contracting Organization to make decisions concerning the scope, cost and schedule of the project.  At each review, the members of the Review Board are required to make decisions that are in the best interests of SDLC.  These decisions may involve making tradeoffs to arrive at an optimal decision.  It may be necessary to omit or remove scope in order to satisfy cost and schedule constraints.  Additional cost may be approved to maintain scope and schedule commitments.  A schedule delay may be agreed upon to enable required scope to be delivered within existing budgets.  Each case is unique and must be considered on its specific merits.

Service Organization

The Service Organization is the unit that that provides deployment support services to the Contracting Organization for all SDLC products.  Services include provision and support of deployment tools, software load support, problem resolution, phone support and deployment planning support.  At SDLC the Service Organization is generally Technical Support.

Training Organization

The Training Organization is the organization that provides customer installation and operations training to the Contracting Organization for all SDLC products.   This generally refers to Technical Support.

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Review Scope of Work (SOW)

In order to pass Gate 11 into Gate 10, the Review board, which consists of the Steering Committee and the OCE, has accepted the initial portfolio scope and the user requirements.

Upon approval by the Review Board, the Scope of Work documents created in gate 10 is communicated to engineering (the performing organization) by the Project Manager.

The Development, Quality Assurance, and Operations groups review each of the SOW’s for completeness. If the SOW’s are not adequately filled out by the Contracting organization, they are sent back to the Contracting Organization to be completed. The Contracting Organization is given 5 business days to complete this task. If the SOW is not complete with the stated time period the SOW is in jeopardy of being dropped from the release. In such a case, the Project Manager would escalate the issue to the Steering Committee to obtain approval to drop the SOW.  

Collect and Bundle SOW

Once all the SOW’s are reviewed for completeness, they are forwarded to the Project Manager who bundles them together and presents the entire SOW release package for review by the Steering Committee.

Approve SOW

The Steering Committee approves the SOW’s by reviewing and signing off on the release package. If any SOW’s were dropped, the Steering Committee will also approve the revised release scope.   

Review Scope

Upon approval by the Steering Committee, the Project Manager distributes the SOW release package to the Performing organization (Engineering) to develop high level estimates for each SOW. Each Performing organization (Dev., Ops, QA, MIS, etc) reviews each SOW that impacts their group and provides an estimate back to the Project Manager. The Project Manager totals all estimates and creates an Engineering total for each SOW. The PM then totals all the SOWs estimates together to develop a total estimate for the release. The PM meets with the Engineering Department, to determine how many of the SOWs can be completed in the defined release timeframe based on these estimates. The prioritized list created in the Release Planning Procedure (SOP 1005) is used to develop the recommended release scope. The Engineering Department, if necessary, drops any low priority SOW’s that can not be completed in the timeframe of the next release.     

Approve Scope

The Project Manager presents the SOW totals, release estimates, and the recommended release scope to the Steering Committee. The Steering Committee at this point either approves the recommended release scope or negotiates alternatives with the performing organizations. If the Steering Committee would like to add dropped SOWs back to the release, either the timeframe, resources/cost, or quality needs to be adjusted and agreed upon by the Steering Committee and Performing organizations. 

Facilitate Definition Phase Kick-Off Meeting

Upon acceptance of the revised scope by the Steering Committee and Performing Organizations the Project Manager facilitates a kick-off meeting for the Definition phase of the project. The Project Manager walks through at a high level all approved SOWs with the Engineering, Product Development, and Technical Support groups. The purpose of the meeting is for everyone to understand the entire set of features/enhancements that will be developed and deployed.  

Develop Plan for Definition phase

In order to complete the Plan for the Definition Phase, the Project Manager will request and receive materials listed below from various areas of both the Contracting and Performing Organizations. The Project Manager

Contracting and Performing Organizations (CON)

• Detailed Schedule

• Resources/Cost Assigned 

• Capital Budget

• Risk Plan Developed 

Validation Function (QA) of the Performing Organization (CON)

• Quality Plan 

Operations Function of the Performing Organization (CON)

• Configuration Plan

All materials contribute to the refinement of the Project Plan by the Project Manager.  At this point the Project Manager ensure that all known assumptions, dependencies, constraints, and risks are reflected in the Project Plan.  Each distribution of the project plan reminds recipients that each has responsibility to review and revise assumptions, dependencies, constraints, and risks, as better information is available. 

Create Quality Plan

The high level Quality Plan will be develop by the Quality Assurance Manager and incorporated into the Project Manager’s Definition Phase Plan

Create Capacity Management Plan

The Operations Manager and Release Engineer will develop the high level Capacity Management Plan. This plan will also be incorporated into the Project Manager’s Definition Phase Plan. See Capacity Management Procedure (SOP 1002)

Create Configuration Management Plan

The Operations Manager and Release Engineer will develop the high level Configuration Management Plan. This plan will also be incorporated into the Project Manager’s Definition Phase Plan. See Configuration Management Procedure (SOP 1003)

Create Release Plan

The Operations Manager and Release Engineer will develop the high level Release Plan. This plan will also be incorporated into the Project Manager’s Definition Phase Plan. See Release Planning Procedure (SOP 1005)

Approve Plan for Definition Phase

The Review Board (Program Sponsor, Program Manager, Project Manager, Contracting Organization(s), and Performing Organization(s)) reviews the Plan for the Definition Phase and the revised project scope. At this point a commitment is made to develop the requirements.

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