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

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