Plan | Architect
This stage of the Mission Data methodology sets the foundation for the overall effort by defining and documenting the functional requirements and the application and technical underpinnings of the web solution. Additionally, the approach and timeline for testing and releasing the solutions functionality "live" into operation will be defined and documented.
The Plan | Architect stage builds upon the learnings gained during the Envision stage and may be executed in parallel with the first stage of the methodology. Like that stage it is executed in an accelerated manner. The teams will continue to engage in the collaborative approach established from the project's onset.
The functional requirements will be formally documented as "use cases" describing the business processes, business logic, and user (actor) interaction associated with the application.
The application and technical architectures will be expressed in a series of documents to be used throughout the design, development and implementation aspects of the project to guide decision making. At a summary level they include the infrastructure elements such as the processing platform, networking components, and database systems. The application architectural elements include the development framework employed, the base programming language(s), code structure, re-used or leveraged application components, and the integration technologies (i.e., middleware).
The testing strategy and release plan will be created as a shared document (under version control) maintained within the effort's project management system.
Key deliverables and results include:
- High level functional requirements and use cases
- Application architecture
- Technical infrastructure
- Integration architecture
- Data Model
- Release plan
- Test strategy