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Solution Delivery

SD

The Solutions Delivery (SD) capability is the ability to design, develop, validate, and deploy IT solutions that effectively address the organization's business requirements and opportunities.

Structure

SD is made up of the following Categories and CBBs. Maturity and Planning are described at both the CC and the CBB level.

ASolution

A1Understanding Needs

Identify and understand user/customer needs (e.g. user requirements, analytics, feedback, issues).

A2Solutions Design

Design solutions to meet functional (e.g. business rules, security) and non-functional (e.g. reliability, testability) needs, taking into account the use of existing and third-party solutions.

A3Develop/Integrate Solutions

Develop, assemble, and integrate solutions.

BQuality

B1QA/Test

Manage and conduct quality assurance and testing activities (e.g. requirements testing, code review, regression testing, user acceptance).

B2Feedback and Analytics

Gather, analyse, and respond to feedback and analytics (e.g. instrumentation, survey, user comments).

CPipeline

C1Deployment and Release Management

Manage the integration, test, and deployment of solutions, and their delivery into production.

C2Environment Management

Manage the environments for all solution delivery activities.

C3Configuration Management

Manage the software, application, platform, and service component configurations and inter-relationships.

DSolutions Management

D1Product Management

Manage features, requirements, priorities, and relationships.

D2Team Formation

Establish appropriate team structures to facilitate collaboration.

D3Toolchain Management

Coordinate platform and pipeline management for provisioning, developing, delivering, and monitoring applications.

Overview

Goal & Objectives

An effective Solutions Delivery (SD) capability aims to:

  • Manage business needs and their traceability throughout IT solutions delivery, contain development costs, improve quality, and reduce the time to market for IT solutions.
  • Develop IT solutions based on the output from needs analysis and the solution's architecture.
  • Select appropriate methods and delivery methodologies (for example, waterfall, incremental, agile) based on the project context.
  • Review and test IT solutions throughout the development process.
  • Employ built-in assurance mechanisms that enhance the quality of IT solutions to better meet customer, business, and user needs and service standards.
  • Design and develop stable and flexible IT solutions that can easily be maintained and updated to meet future demands of the organization.
  • Manage changes and releases that occur during the IT solution's delivery life cycle.

Scope

Definition

The Solutions Delivery (SD) capability is the ability to design, develop, validate, and deploy IT solutions that effectively address the organization's business requirements and opportunities.

Improvement Planning

Practices-Outcomes-Metrics (POM)

Representative POMs are described for SD at each level of maturity.

2Basic
  • Practice
    Ensure business analysts identify requirements upfront in an initial requirements gathering activity.
    Outcome
    There is an understanding of requirements before the organization commits to solution development.
    Metric
    # of IT requirements specified.
  • Practice
    Implement some automation of regression/integration tests and a common set of tools to support testing.
    Outcome
    Tests are recorded and repeatable.
    Metric
    % of test effort allocated to manual testing.
  • Practice
    Implement procedures and controls for high profile releases into production.
    Outcome
    There is an agreed approach for releases into the production environment.
    Metric
    Existence of procedures and controls for high profile releases into production.
3Intermediate
  • Practice
    Gather and analyse needs in an iterative way, using a number of facilitation practices and feedback loops with high user involvement.
    Outcome
    There is a good understanding of requirements throughout the design and development process, which can adapt to emerging user needs.
    Metric
    % of requirements that are implemented in the solution.
  • Practice
    Ensure that tests are routinely automated, including many non-functional tests.
    Outcome
    Automated test suites run efficiently to provide results rapidly.
    Metric
    % of test effort allocated to manual testing.
  • Practice
    Put in place a process for consistently evaluating the potential impact and risks of releases, involving a range of stakeholders.
    Outcome
    Stakeholders are aware of upcoming releases and their impact.
    Metric
    % of stakeholders aware of upcoming releases and impacts.
4Advanced
  • Practices
    • Gather and understand needs in an iterative way.
    • Use different methods, as appropriate, for gathering and analysing needs, including for example, quantitative and qualitative approaches.
    Outcome
    There is an excellent understanding of requirements throughout the design and development process, which can adapt to emerging user needs.
    Metric
    % of requirements that are implemented in the solution.
  • Practice
    Extend automation to all aspects of the solution including, for example, readability analysis.
    Outcome
    Pervasive automated test suites consistently provide results rapidly.
    Metric
    % of test effort allocated to manual testing.
  • Practice
    Put in place standardized release management approaches.
    Outcome
    Stakeholders can access information about releases.
    Metric
    % of stakeholders aware of upcoming releases and impacts.
5Optimized
  • Practices
    • Gather and understand needs in an ongoing and iterative way until the need is met.
    • Use complementary facilitation practices to effectively and inclusively ensure that needs are continually understood.
    Outcome
    There is an advanced understanding of requirements throughout the design and development process, which can adapt creatively to emerging user needs.
    Metric
    % of requirements that are implemented in the solution.
  • Practice
    Experiment with innovative methods and solutions to improve the level of automation and efficiency of tests on an ongoing basis.
    Outcome
    There is optimal use of automation at all times.
    Metric
    % of test effort allocated to manual testing.
  • Practice
    Implement automated scheduling, allowing for out-of-hours releases as needed.
    Outcome
    Releases do not involve service or performance degradation.
    Metric
    % of stakeholders aware of upcoming releases and impacts.

Reference

History

This capability was introduced in Revision 18.04 as an update to Solutions Delivery (16).