Building a Large System

This route is to be used for in-house development of new systems. This covers all client/server systems intended for use by multiple users or multiple departments.

The route map for building a large system includes the following phases in several standard stages:

The Initiation Stage:

  1. Proposal
    The proposal phase is the initial phase of a project. This phase identifies a business need, and proposes that a solution be found. It may or may not include an actual proposed solution.
  2. Preliminary Planning
    In this phase, a preliminary plan is developed for the business analysis phase of the project, and the business context of the project is determined. This is the phase where the scope is set, resources are planned, and the context that the new system will operate in is determined.

The Analysis Stage:

  1. Business Analysis
    In this phase, we model the current business system, electronic or manual, focusing on the primary product, the triggering event(s), inputs to the system, secondary products, and activity flow. This is also the first time we identify the objects that are intrinsic to the business in this system.
  2. System Analysis
    In this phase, we begin to move toward the future; the team analyzes the desired system, not the current system. This is where new ideas, features, and design changes should be introduced. The team focuses more closely on the transactions and events that make up the process, to create the Transaction Sequence Models, and then extends the Entity Object Model to include aggregates and inheritance.

    3. In the final steps of this phase, the team focuses on creating or refining the plan for the completion of the project. This is when the requirements are developed, the remaining project phases are scheduled, the resources are identified and scheduled, and the deliverables are identified.

The Design Stage:

  1. Logical Design
    In this phase, the focus changes to design. The extended team may be changed to take advantage of specific design expertise. The team reviews the materials from earlier phases and begins the system design, identifying any additional system objects, determining operations and data structures for all objects, validating relationships and interactions between objects, and prototyping user interface objects.
  2. Physical Design
    In this phase, the team completes the technical blueprints for the new system, based on the implementation platform. If necessary, the team may be changed at this point to take advantage of specific platform expertise.

The Development Stage:

  1. Construction
    In this phase, the system is actually built, unit testing is done by the developers, and the QA Test system is built. The team may be changed again, to include specific implementation skills, and must include at least one client from an earlier phase.
  2. QA Testing
    In this phase, the system is tested against the specifications (prototype and design documents) by staff members outside the development team. Exceptions are reported back to the development team and corrections are made as required. When the system passes QA testing, a User Acceptance Test system is built. For this phase, the project team includes both the QA team and the development team from the Construction phase.
  3. User Acceptance Testing
    In this phase, the User Acceptance Test system is fully tested by the client department, corrections are made as required, and the Production system is built. The team may be changed to include specific expertise in the business area addressed by the system, to ensure that the system provides the required functionality.

The Installation & Deployment Stage:

  1. Implementation
    In this phase, the Production system is installed in the Production area, documentation is delivered, initial user training is completed, and the application is turned over to the DMS Production Support team. When the system is running live, it is reviewed to ensure that all of the goals in the project plan were met with a satisfactory result. The team may be regrouped again, to include specific expertise in installation and training.