Lifecycle is both iterative & incremental.
Atern integrates a PM lifecycle and a product development lifecycle into a single framework.
Each phase has objectives & pre-conditions, & delivers products that are used to assess progress.
Acceptance of products enables agreement project can move safely from one lifecycle phase to another.
1 Pre-Project Formalises a proposal for a project.
- Describe the business problem to be solved
- Identify the Business Sponsor & Business Visionary
- Confirm project is in line with strategy
- Scope, plan and resource feasibility phase
- Output is a Terms of Reference
2 Feasibility Viability of project should be continually assessed, to ensure benefits outweigh costs
- Establishes whether viable solution
- Identify benefits
- Outline possible approaches, including strategies for sourcing solution & project management
- Describe organisational governance
- State first cut estimates of timescale & costs
- Plan & resource Foundations phase
- Pre-conditions:
- Terms of Reference must have been approved
- Resources are available for feasibility
- Business Visionary has sufficient time to help shape the project
3 Foundations Aimed at establishing firm & enduring foundations for project
- Baseline high level requirements
- Describe business processes to be supported by proposed solution
- Identify information used, created & updated by proposed solution
- Describe strategies for all aspects of solution deployment
- Detail Business case
- Start designing solution architecture & identifying physical / infrastructure elements of solution
- Define technical implementation standards
- Describe how quality will be assured
- Establish appropriate governance & organisation for project
- Describe solution development lifecycle, along with techniques to be applied in managing the project & for demonstrating & communicating progress
- Pre-conditions:
- Agreement of feasibility assessment (if created)
4 Exploration Iteratively & incrementally investigate detailed business requirements & translate them into a viable solution
- Elaborate on requirements captured & baselined in PRL during Foundations
- Explore full detail of business need & provide detailed requirements for evolving solution
- To create functional solution that demonstrably meets needs of business
- Give wider organisation early view of solution they will eventually operate, support and maintain
- Evolve Business Area Definition, Systems Architecture Definition products from Foundations phase into models that describe how the solution works & how it supports all impacted business processes & systems
- Pre-conditions:
- Business, Solution & Management Foundations products have been collectively accepted
- Environments (physical & technical) are in place to support the development of the solution
5 Engineering Iteratively & incrementally evolve the preliminary solution created during exploration to achieve full operational readiness
- Refine evolving solution from Exploration phase to meet agreed acceptance criteria
- Expand & refine products required to successfully operate & support solution in live operation
- Pre-conditions:
- Evolving solution from Exploration phase has been approved
- Business Visionary has acknowledged features demonstrated are in line with vision
- Environments are in place to support development of solution
- All required personnel & stakeholders are engaged as required
- Evolving solution from Exploration phase has been approved
6 Deployment Purpose is to get the solution into live use (/ready to ship)
- Confirm ongoing performance & viability of project & re-plan as required
- Deploy solution into live business environment
- Train end users and/or provide documentation to support live operation in business environment
- Train and/or provide documentation for operations and support staff responsible for supporting & maintaining technical aspects
- Assess whether deployed solution is likely to enable delivery of intended business benefit described in Business Case
- After final deployment:
- Bring project to a close
- Review overall project performance from technical and/or process and business perspective
- Pre-conditions:
- Deployable solution has been approved for deployment
7 Post-Project After last planned deployment (3 – 6 months later)
- Assess whether the business benefits described in the business case have been achieved
- Pre-conditions:
- Solution has been successfully deployed