Initiation Phase

Definition

Initiation Phase

the first phase of the application development and life cycles during which enough of the application’s requirements and architecture are produced so that agreement can be reached between the development organization and the customer organization regarding the goals and scope of the following phases

Goals

The typical goals of the Initiation Phase of an application development project are to:

• Ensure that the development organization and the customer organization reach an early consensus regarding the customer organization’s vision of the application.
• Ensure that critical decisions are early regarding technology, partnering, vendors, etc.
• Ensure that the development organization has plans for successfully producing the next version of the application.
• Estimate the cost and required schedule to the following construction and delivery phases.
• Eliminate the highest project risks.

Objectives

To meet these goals, the typical objectives of the initiation phase on an application development project are to:

• Obtain major stakeholder agreement on the customer's vision of the application.
• Engineer all high risk and architecturally-significant system requirements.
• Document the initial partial (e.g., 80%) system architecture (including major COTS component selection).
• Produce an architectural prototype consisting of:
  • The implementation of at least one end-to-end use case path.
  • A partial implementation of the domain layer.
• Produce a low-fidelity prototype of the user interface.
• Derive a realistic estimate of the scope of the current version of the application.
• Document appropriate plans for one or more of the following phases.

Preconditions

The following preconditions should typically be satisfied before the initiation phase of an application development project can successfully begin:

• The customer's business, branding, and technology strategy exists.
• Representatives of the development organization and the customer organization's sign the project contract and statement of work.

Postconditions

The initiation phase of an application development project is typically complete when the following postconditions have been met:

• The following major stakeholders agree on the customer organization's vision of the application being developed:
  • Customer Representative
  • Project Manager
  • Technical Leader
• The customer organization has accepted delivery of relatively-complete specifications specifying high risk and architecturally-significant system requirements:
  • Operational Requirements
  • Data Requirements
  • Design Constraints
  • Business Rules
• An initial partial system architecture has been developed, documented, prototyped, and verified against a subset of the specified system requirements that have been identified by the technical leader.
• The domain layer is partially implemented.
• A low-fidelity prototype of the user interface exists.
• A realistic estimate of the scope of the current version of the application has been derived from both the initial partial requirements and initial partial system architecture.
• Initial versions of planning documents for the following phases have been developed.
• Initial versions of the deliverable work products have been delivered to the customer organization.
• The customer organization has accepted the delivered work products.

Milestones

The typical milestones of the initiation phase of an application development project include:

1. Project Mobilized including:
   • Legal work products signed.
   • Initial teams staffed.
   • Facilities ready.
2. Significant Requirements Specified including:
   • High-risk and architecturally significant:
     • System requirements
     • Data and content requirements
     • Quality requirements
     • External API requirements
     • Design constraints
3. Initial Architectures Documented including:
   • Logical architecture
   • System architecture
   • Data and content architecture
   • Hardware archecture
   • Software architecture
   • Human interface architecture
   • Mechanisms
   • Vendors, components, and technologies selected
4. End-To-End Prototype Validated
   • Executable archiecture implemented
   • Executable architecture testing
5. Following Phases Planned
   • Construction Phase estimated and planned
   • Delivery Phase estimated and planned
   • Usage Phase estimated and planned (optional)
6. Initiation Phase Complete including:
   • Initiation phase passed audit
   • Initiation phase passed review

The following figure illustrates the order and approximate timing of preceding initiation phase milestones:

Work Products

Primary Work Products

During the initiation phase, the following primary work products are typically produced and delivered during an application development project:

• Requirements Set:
  • Actor Cards (partial - 90%)
  • Use Case Cards (partial - 80%)
  • Class Responsibility Collaborator (CRC) Cards (partial - 70%)
  • Application Vision Statement (initial)
  • Requirements Executive Summary (partial - 80%)
  • System Requirements Specification (partial - high risk and architecturally significant)
  • Glossary (initial)
  • Domain Model Document (partial)
• Architecture Set:
  • System Architecture Document (partial)
  • Software Architecture Prototype (initial end-to-end use case path)
• Design Set:
  • Human Interface Prototype (partial)
  • Human Interface Design Document (partial - site map and navigation approach)

Secondary Work Products

During the initiation phase, the following secondary work products are typically produced and delivered:

• Management Set:
  • Contract
  • Statement Of Work
  • Management Plan
  • Work Breakdown Structure
  • Organization Chart
  • Job Description
  • Master Schedule
  • Component Schedule
  • Team Schedule
  • Budget
  • Status Report
• Configuration Managment Set:
  • Configuration Managment Plan
  • Change Request Form
  • Configuration Identification Report
  • CCB Meeting Minutes
  • Configuration Status Report
  • Configuration Audit Report
• Risk Managment Set:
  • Risk Management Plan
  • Risk Analysis
  • Risk Monitoring Report
• Quality Set:
  • Quality Plan
  • Audit Report
  • Inspection Report
  • Inspect Summary Rpt
  • Process Checklist
  • Endeavor Debrief Report
• Process Set:
  • Process Description
  • Conventions for each work product:
    • Guidelines
    • Templates
    • Content and Format Standards
    • Inspection Checklists
• Metrics Set:
  • Metrics Plan
  • Metrics Report
• Environments Set:
  • Project Environment Design Document
  • Product Selection Report
  • Development Environments::
    • Reuse Environment
    • Engineering Environment
    • Multimedia Environment
    • Integration Environment
    • Test Environment
• Training Set:
  • Training Materials
  • Training Plan
  • Training Schedule
  • Vendor Assessment

Teams

The following teams typically collaborate during the initiation phase of an application development project:

• Project Team
• Management Teams:
  • Program Management Team
  • Project Management Team
  • Change Control Board
  • Configuration Management Team
  • Metrics Team
  • Quality Team
  • Training Team
• Development Teams:
  • Architecture Team
  • Environments Team
  • Integration Team
  • Process Team
  • Requirements Team
  • Reuse Team
  • Security Team
  • Software Development Team
  • User Experience Team
• Inspection Teams:
  • Architecture Inspection Team
  • Database Inspection Team
  • Environments Inspection Team
  • Requirements Inspection Team
  • Software Inspection Team

Activities And Tasks

The following application development engineering activities and associated tasks are typically performed during the construction phase in an iterative, incremental, parallel, and timeboxed manner:

• Environments Engineering Activity:
  • Vendor and Tool Evaluation
  • Vendor and Tool Selection
  • Tool Acquisition
  • Environments Design
  • Environments Production
  • Environments Maintenance
• Requirements Engineering Activity:
  • Application Visioning
  • Requirements Reuse
  • Requirements Identification
  • Requirements Analysis
  • Requirements Specification
• Architecting Activity:
  • Architectural Patterns Selection
  • Logical Architecture Production
  • Physical Architecture Production:
    • Component Identification (Data, Hardware, Software)
    • Technology Partner Selection
    • Technology Vendor Selection
  • Architectural Mechanism Production
  • Architecture Reuse
  • Architecture Prototyping
  • Architecture Documentation
  • Architecture Integrity Assurance
• Design Activity (for human interface and software architecture prototypes):
  • Design Production
  • Design Refactoring
  • Design Reuse
  • Design Documentation
• Implementation Activity (for human interface and software architecture prototypes):
  • Acquisition
  • Fabrication
  • Implementation Reuse
  • Programming
  • Debugging
• Integration Activity (for human interface and software architecture prototypes):
  • Integration Planning
  • Component Integration
  • Installation
  • Configuration
  • Integration Reporting

Administrative Activities and Associated Tasks

The following administrative activities and associated tasks are typically performed during the initiation phase in an iterative, incremental, parallel, and timeboxed manner:

• Project Management Activity:
  • Cost Management
  • Communications Management
  • Delivery Management
  • Management Planning
  • Personnel Management
  • Relationship Management
  • Resource Management
  • Schedule Management
  • Scope Management
• Configuration Management Activity:
  • Configuration Management Planning
  • Configuration Identification
  • Version Control
  • Configuration Control
  • Configuration Status Reporting
  • Configuration Auditing
• Risk Management Activity:
  • Risk Analysis
  • Risk Control
  • Risk Identification
  • Risk Management Planning
  • Risk Monitoring
• Training Activity (primarily customers and users):
  • Training Planning
  • Training Needs Assessment
  • Training Vendor Selection
  • Training Materials Production
  • Training Scheduling
  • Training Delivery

General Engineering Activities and Associated Tasks

The following general engineering activities and associated tasks are typically performed during the construction phase in an iterative, incremental, parallel, and timeboxed manner:

• Process Engineering Activity:
  • Process Needs Assessment
  • Process Framework Extension
  • Process Framework Iteration
  • Process Construction
  • Process Tailoring
  • Process Documentation
  • Process Consulting
  • Process Mandating
• Quality Engineering Activity:
  • Quality Needs Assessment
  • Quality Planning
  • Quality Assurance
  • Quality Control
• Metrics Engineering Activity (produces size, cost, and effort estimates of following phases based on the requirements and architecture):
  • Metrics Needs Assessment
  • Metrics Planning
  • Metrics Collection
  • Metrics Analysis
  • Metrics Reporting
• Reuse Engineering Activity:
  • Endeavor Support
  • ReusableWork Product Certification
  • ReusableWork Product Evaluation
  • Reusable Work Product Identification
  • ReusableWork Product Preparation
  • Reuse Repository Production

Guidelines

• If a previous business engineering project has not occurred, then relevant business engineering phase goals, objectives, milestones, work products, activities, and tasks may be included in the initiation phase of an application development project.
• To provide needed flexibility to address changing conditions during the following phases, the requirements and architecture activities are typically only partially completed during this phase. Specifically on an application development project, the development organization produces:
  • All high risk and architecturally-significant system requirements.
  • The initial partial (e.g., 80%) system architecture (including major COTS component selection).
• However, some organizations complete the requirements, architecture, and even a significant amount of design during this phase so as to provide adequate information to enable the following phases to be completed under a fixed price, fixed time contract.