Phase 5 - Incremental Development, Testing, Deployment and Improvement

From MIKE2 Methodology

The activities in phase 5 cover Incremental Development, Testing, Deployment of the solution into production and Improvement of the solution once its live.

Overview

Phase 5 can be broken into 4 major groups of activities:

• The Develop activities transform the technical design into working modules that can be tested. This includes developing any conversion programs required and loading a representative sample of production data. In addition to the actual development, system documentation and training materials are prepared which should mirror the system as it is implemented.

• The Test activities involve multiple cycles that are largely executed in a serial fashion. Therefore, the testing process can occur over a large period of elapsed time. The focus of testing varies to some degree depending on the solution being delivered; the activities presented in this section are general approach for an information management project.

• The Deploy activities deliver the new system into produciton. This includes setting up the production environment, installing the new system applications and data, publishing the system documentation, training users and initiating production operations.

• The Continuous Improvement activities are focused on delivering incremental improvements to existing functionality. Continuous Improvement may involve minor changes or may initiate significant pieces of work. Significant pieces of work would generally involve taking the scope defined as part of Continuous Improvement and going back to Phase 3 for its implementation.

Phase 5 is oftentimes the place in the project where the ‘rubber meets the road’ regarding design issues. It is critical that teams avoid waiting until Phase 5 to address major strategy and design issues to avoid project delays.

Major Deliverables

Develop & Test

• Developed and Tested Software Modules
• Implementation Environment (first iteration could be a Pilot environment)
• User and Operational Manuals/Online Help
• Updated Implementation Plan
• Validated business and technical operations of the system and conversion programs

Deploy (Roll-out)

• Completed system, installed and handed off to customer
• Operations and Monitoring
• Compliance Assessment

Continuous Improvements to the following areas:

• Data Quality
• Data Governance Policies, Metrics, Standards and Processes
• Integration and Physical Infrastructure
• Organisational Model, People and how they work together

Closeout

• Post Implementation Review
• Upload of key project documents to knowledge sharing system
• Extensions to MIKE2.0 Methodology

Phase 5 is the most serial of the phases, up the deployment of the production system. The Continuous Improvement activities are run in parallel.