sdlcR!®

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The Foundation for Successful System Development




sdlcR!® is ESR’s agile, Unified Process-based systems development methodology. When you hire ESR to work on your project, we tailor sdlcR!® to align with your standards, your deliverables, your methodology. We right-size the methodology so it fits the characteristics of your project.

Phases and Disciplines of sdlcR!®

Phases of sdlcR!®

Phase Goal Highlight
Inception Establish scope of development effort, define requirements, and define candidate architectures. Business process modeling is performed here.
Elaboration Design the system, establish an executable architecture, procure/acquire any COTS/GOTS components. At end of this phase, we have a working evolutionary prototype of the software, including major architectural features, which is the basis for future development.
Construction Implement and test the system, configure and integrate any COTS components. “In-line” testing as we go, fixing any identified problems.
Transition Deploy the system to customer’s environment from the development environment. Train users, convert data, turn over system to users. End users and IT operations have hands-on access; they become familiar with the application architecture and how it works.
Production Ongoing operation of the system to meet service level requirements and capable of evolving to meet changing user needs. Changes are made via an abbreviated production cycle, adhering to all standards and producing all required artifacts. Our approach minimizes bug fixes and new, subsequent environmental changes or versions of middleware.
Retirement Recognize when a system is reaching the end of its useful life and begin planning for its replacement as well as preservation of vital information for future access or reactivation. Create opportunity for successful development in the future.
  • sdlcR!® provides detailed guidance about performance of the six development and four support disciplines. Discipline guidance helps project teams do the right things and do things right.
  • sdlcR!® is iterative and incremental. Phases are divided into one or more time-boxed iterations typically lasting about six weeks each. Phases and iterations have entry and exit criteria that provide natural assessment points to help understand if things are on track.
  • Business modeling and requirements management drive architecture and implementation for business process automation. sdlcR!® has a well defined method for capture of just enough “as-is” and detailed “to-be” business process. The “to-be” model will prove instrumental in guiding configuration planning and identification of places where glue code of customizations are necessary.
  • From the Elaboration phase on, sdlcR!® produces a hands-on, demonstrable, executable, evolutionary prototype of the system under development. Each release builds upon the previous release until the system is feature-complete and ready for implementation. Stakeholders have an objective means to concretely judge progress every six weeks and make mid-course corrections early-on, reducing the risk of budget and schedule overruns.
  • Under sdlcR!®, in-line testing helps insure that quality is built in rather than awkwardly bolted on at the end. Thus, implementation and requirements remain in sync throughout the development lifecycle.