SDLC

The Contracting Organization contracts with the performing organization to develop the product using a project discipline.  The Contracting Organization represents two departments: Product and Technical Support.  Product is divided into Sales and Advertising, Marketing and Product, and Strategic Development.  A brief description of each area follows.

• Sales and Marketing: The area that sells to clients/customers in both the domestic and international markets.

•  Marketing and Product: This area manages the portfolio of features and functionality for outbound marketing.

• Strategic Development: Research and Development group viewing opportunities in emerging markets and up-selling existing accounts.

• Technical Support: Technical Support performs two roles in the current environment: Training and customer support.  As the Service Organization they provide customer support to end users (first level).  In their role as the Training Organization they provide training to field and service engineers.

The Owner oversees the completion of work at a gate.  They may be from the Product, Content, Technical Support, or Development areas depending on the project activities underway.  The Project Sponsor assigns owners at the beginning of a project.

Each gate has an Owner who is accountable for tracking the gate requirements, maintaining the status of the gate and taking corrective action to ensure that the gate is met in a timely manner.  The gate owner is also responsible for convening a meeting of the appropriate review board to approve passage of the gate. In the case of gates that have associated management phase reviews (see glossary), the gate owner convenes the review meeting and facilitates the decision making that is required at that gate.  In the event that an exception arises at a gate that does not have any associated management phase review, the owner is responsible for escalating the issue to the appropriate management phase review board for resolution.

The Program Manager is the individual who oversees multiple projects that are related by a type of service delivery or by feature and functionality.  The Program Manager is accountable for the program and is empowered by the Office of the Chief Executive to make decisions affecting the successful outcome of the program.

 The Program Manager takes an enterprise view.  The Program Manager is responsible for determining the schedule for deployment of company resources and achieving the objectives of a specific program.  The role includes the following additional responsibilities:

•  Managing project managers

•  Producing milestone progress reports

•  Initiating issue and risk mediation

•  Scheduling and conducting status meeting

       - Preparing status reports

       - Ensuring the project is on time, within budget program deliverables.

The Program Management Office (PMO) monitors, supports and reports on SDLC's programs and projects.  Program Managers provide defined periodic updates to the PMO.  The PMO consolidates the efforts of all programs and technology specific projects and delivers these reports to the OCE.

 The PMO is responsible for issuing standards and guidelines for planning, tracking, and reporting, and for providing project support to individual project teams.  Accountability for project delivery will remain with the individual Project Manager and Program Manager.

The Project Manager is accountable for the project and must be empowered to make decisions affecting the successful outcome of the project responsible for managing a project.  This should not be confused with the project management function that exists within many organizations.

Project Managers are responsible for determining the deployment schedule for their specific project.  This role includes the following additional responsibilities:

• Reviewing progress reports

• Taking corrective action in problem solving

• Scheduling and conducting status meetings

• Preparing status reports

• Ensuring that change control procedures are being followed

The Review Board is composed of representatives from both the Performing and Contracting Organizations, as well as the Project Sponsor, Project Manager and Program Manager.  Review Boards assess the deliverables at each gate in the System Development Life Cycle to insure that requirements have been met.  Also, the Review Board’s specific knowledge of the project’s goals and status allow it to make informed decisions to which they are held accountable.

Milestone/Gate reviews provide the mechanism for the management of the Performing Organization and the Contracting Organization to make decisions concerning the scope, cost and schedule of the project.  At each review, the members of the Review Board are required to make decisions that are in the best interests of SDLC.  These decisions may involve making tradeoffs to arrive at an optimal decision.  It may be necessary to omit or remove scope in order to satisfy cost and schedule constraints.  Additional cost may be approved to maintain scope and schedule commitments.  A schedule delay may be agreed upon to enable required scope to be delivered within existing budgets.  Each case is unique and must be considered on its specific merits.