IT Management Reference Guide

The Effective Use of SDLC - Part One: Integrating and Coordinating Micro-Climates

This segment was written by Diane Altwies.

A Software Development Life Cycle (SDLC) is a method for ensuring consistency in software development supportability and maintainability. This is also known as Classic Life Cycle Model (or) Linear Sequential Model (or) Waterfall Method. Depending upon your organization, the SDLC would include a set of activities similar to the following:

1. System/Information Engineering and Modeling

2. Software Requirements Analysis

3. Systems Analysis and Design

4. Code Generation

5. Testing

6. Maintenance

Figure 7. Iterative nature of SDLA

The classic waterfall method implies that each subsequent step does not begin until all elements of the steps preceding it have completed, and that there is no going back to a prior step once the subsequent step has begun. A more modern approach is shown in Figure 7 in which steps can be repeated in an iterative manner.

A recent client of mine initiated a major overhaul of their SDLC process and began with the traditional waterfall approach. A cross-functional team that was assembled to refine the process soon realized that an iterative approach was far more practical and efficient in the long run, even though some of the purists among them needed to be convinced of the benefits. It did not take long for everyone to be in support of the iterative method.

An SDLC process is an iterative approach to development, providing natural review points or "gates" as progress occurs. These gates can be used to validate efforts in order to ensure compliance to requirements.

Implementing an SDLC process effectively, with appropriate iterative evaluation steps, can provide organizations the benefits of consistent delivery and improved maintainability of source code and of the application. A common misperception is that the process provides consistency and maintainability all by itself. This is not the case. An organization's commitment to structure and flexibility and a strong project management process, in combination with an SDLC process, will provide the best results possible. An SDLA process, regardless of how well-designed and robust in nature, cannot by itself ensure software development success.

The reality is that it takes the integration and coordination of four key organizational environments or "micro-climates". A microclimate is a local zone wherein the climate differs from the surrounding area. Microclimates exist, for example, in large buildings, in and around cities, and can even exist on individual properties. For example, one may find that grass growing in a corner bounded by a concrete driveway and sidewalk may need more water than the grass growing in the fenced back yard of the same property.Microclimates can be used to the advantage of gardeners who carefully choose and position their plants.

Figure 8. IT Organizational Climates Associated with SDLC

Management, Customers, IT organizations and Project Management organizations, although theoretically are working toward the same ultimate goals and objectives, each approach problems in different ways and will vary in their opinions on how to achieve the overall project objectives. Therefore, I compare these organizational environments, as shown in Figure 8, to that of the natural science of "micro-climates".

As stated earlier, ensuring consistency of delivery and maintainability of software can only be accomplished with an efficient SDLC process. One of the primary objectives of the SDLC process is to ensure that the business requirements are comprehensively defined. A combination of various definition documents can be used in order to clearly define the quality required to satisfy the customer. These documents have specific purposes and should interrelate, so that the set of documents clearly describe the needs of the customer and how the IT department effectively plans on delivering on those needs.

• Business Requirements documents include critical success criteria such as performance requirements, and must-have features and functionality, which should be directly related to the overall objectives of the application project. Business Requirements documents are best if developed by the customer themselves, but in many cases, the customer may not have the expertise in order to perform, in which case, the IT analysts could be used to provide that expertise. The objective of the Business Requirements document defines Product Quality expectations.

• Software Design documents provide a comprehensive view of how the software application will be structured. It should provide a detail enough definition of how each software component should be developed in order to meet the Business requirements, sometimes called psuedocode.

• Architectural Design and Technical Design documents include the definition of the technical environment, construction principles to be used in design and technical documentation of code, algorithms, interfaces, APIs, etc. Design documents, whether, software, architectural or technical, cannot be developed serially. They must be developed iteratively in order to ensure complete and comprehensive documentation.

• Applications Test Plans provide the development team with the approach to testing the application.

• Deployment documents provide information to the support team who will be responsible for maintaining the application. This document should include a summary of information provided in the other documents that is pertinent to the on-going maintenance of the application.

If you look at a typical SDLC, you will notice that System/Information Engineering and Modeling, Software Requirements Analysis, and Systems Analysis and Design appear to be worked on sequentially. In order to effectively utilize an SDLC process, all documents described above, with the exception of Deployment, should be initiated early on in the process and iteratively reviewed and updated. By performing these steps of document, review, update on all interrelated documents, the odds of delivering a product that meets the expected quality will significantly improve. It does not however, assure project quality. That assurance comes by integrating sound project management techniques with those of a sound SDLC process. Part Two of this series presents how to perform this valuable integration.

References

http://encyclopedia.thefreedictionary.com/Micro-climate