This phase is one of the most fundamental to project success, even for what one might think is a relatively small or easy project. Business requirements must be identified and analyzed. The scope of the project must be defined. Scope identifies the parts of the vision that can be implemented within the projects constraints. The deliverables for envisioning are:

• Vision and scope documents
• Risk assesment document
• Project team structure document

During this phase we prepare the functional specification, work through the design process, and prepare work plans, cost estimates, and schedules for the various deliverables.

The design process has three levels: conceptual design, logical design and physical design. Each level is completed in sequence.

The results of the design process are documented in the functional specification. The functional specification describes in detail how each feature is to look and behave. It also describes the architecture and the design for all the features. The following deliverables are produced during the planning phase.

• Functional specification
• Risk management plan
• Project plan and schedule

Initially the development and test environment must be set up. During the developing phase we accomplish most of the building of solution components (documentation as well as code). However, some development work may continue into the stabilization phase in response to testing. Deliverables from this phase are:

• Source code and executables
• Installation routines and deployment configuration settings
• A frozen functional specification
• Test specifications and test cases

Although some testing will have been completed prior to this phase, this phase emphasizes usage testing and operation under realistic environmental conditions. Once a build has been deemed stable enough to be a release candidate, the solution is deployed to a pilot group. The deliverables from this phase are:

• Final release candidate
• Test results
• Source code and executables
• Project documentation

During this phase, we will deploy the core technology and site components, stabilize the deployment, transition the project to operations and support, and obtain final customer approval of the project. After the deployment, we will conduct a project review and a customer satisfaction survey. Deliverables from this phase are:

• Operation and support information systems
• Operations manuals and procedures
• Final versions of all project documents
• Definition of next steps