The State of Florida Official ISDM and Project Methodology

Did you know the State of Florida has adopted an official Information Systems Development Methodology (ISDM)? How about an official Project Management Methodology? Yep, both an ISDM and project management methodology are outlined in Chapter 60DD-7 of the Florida Administrative Code. This rule, also known as the “Information Technology Life Cycle Policies and Standards” was adopted sometime in December 2004.

Excerpt from Section 1.b of the rule:

“It is the intent of this rule chapter to establish an Information Technology (IT) Life Cycle which provides a flexible framework for approaching a variety of information technology projects. Primary emphasis is placed on the information and systems decisions to be made and the proper timing of decisions. The framework enables system developers, project managers, program/account analysts, and business/system owners and users to combine activities, processes and products, as appropriate, and to select the tools and methodologies best suited to the unique needs of each project. The purpose of the Information Technology Life Cycle is to:

1. Establish a common Project Management Methodology identifying the phases of an information technology project, specific processes to be performed within each phase and standard tasks that comprise each process.
2. Establish a common Information Systems Development Methodology outlining procedures, practices, and guidelines governing the initiation, concept development, planning, requirements analysis, design, development, integration and test, implementation, operations, maintenance and disposition of information technology.
3. Define minimum standards and provide a best practice model which establishes the framework and processes for a structured approach to the complete life cycle management of information technology resources. Standards are required administrative procedures or management controls utilizing current, open, non-proprietary or non-vendor specific technologies.”

Wait a second! This rule is under DMS it doesn’t apply to my Agency! Well check the fine print, the rule applies to all those entities described in Section 216.011(1)(qq), F.S. (and that includes just about everyone…)

The Details:

Section 002 of the rule specifies the Project Management Methodology to be used by State agencies and clearly aligns that methodology to the PMI-PMBOK.

The life-cycle outlined in the rule encompasses the common phases of a waterfall ISDM model and adds two phases after Implementation to extend the ISDM into a full life-cycle. The two additional phases are “Operations and Maintenance Phase” followed by “Disposition Phase”.

The SDLC phases outlined in the rule are:

• Initiation Phase
• Needs Assessment or Feasibility Phase
• Planning Phase
• Requirements Analysis Phase
• Design Phase
• Acquisition/Development Phase
• Integration, Testing and Acceptance Phase
• Implementation Phase
• Operations and Maintenance Phase
• Disposition Phase

So does this mean that RUP or any of the more Agile models are off limits? Well no, but you do need to do a bit of homework and cross-map the phases to make sure you are covered.

For example, RUP and the Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) are still somewhat waterfall-like they just don’t span as many phases. If you map each phase of you chosen framework to one or more corresponding phases of 60DD-7 then you should be fine. After all nothing says you can’t execute two phases in parallel…

The key to cross-mapping to 60DD-7 is to make sure that you address the deliverable for each phase. This is where some good old fashion document templates will go a long way.

I found the easiest framework to map was Microsoft Solutions Framework (MSF) 3.0; it is a hybrid “iterative-waterfall” model so it is very flexible; in addition the project management functions within MSF are already aligned to the PMBOK and reference it judiciously.

Ok, so all of you Florida agencies and vendors out there who are still winging it and calling your process ”RAD” (or worse claiming to be Agile), you can stop now… “it’s the law”.

 

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