Systems Development Life-cycle Definition and Implementation for a Retailer

The Client is in the retail industry with over 100 stores in Western Canada. Because of continuing growth, it needed to upgrade its technology to keep up with its expansion. At the same time the company had to comply with new legislation regarding IT controls policies.

Understanding the Vision

Our first step was to study the technology in place, and understand management's vision and planning. This allowed us to put forward a solution consistent with the corporate goals and IT mandate.

Top-Down and Bottom-Up Approach

The SDLC had to include checkpoints that would allow the company to comply with the control policies while remaining relevant to the industry, technology, staff experience and budgets. After getting a good picture of all requirements, we worked together with auditors to understand the controls, with the IT team to define the processes and artifacts.

Staff Composition and Experience

Keeping in mind the existing staff (permanent and contractors) and their valuable experience, the solution we proposed considered outsourcing of portions of the development or involvement of third parties.

The SDLC Framework

We defined a very simple and concise SDLC using Confluence (an enterprise wiki) for documenting it. It included proper checkpoints that could map to the required controls and it incorporated best Project Management and appropriate Agile practices.

Mentoring and Implementation

Because of ongoing projects, the definition of the SDLC took place while mentoring and implementing practices. Clear guidelines were also defined and we did a follow-up to ensure their adoption. Mentoring included Project Management, Business and System analysis practices as well as the adoption of a Project Management Framework.