Today, like never before, IT captures the pulse of a banking organization. The success or failure of a banking enterprise bears a direct correlation to its ability and maturity in ensuring timely IT project delivery.
It is imperative for the practitioners to revisit their IT strategies and to seek business solutions that accommodate requirements pertaining to the
- System complexity; include features to be built and architectural compulsions.
- Scalability; include infrastructure, security and performance prerequisites.
- Service, request fulfilment model and escalation matrix.
- Delivery, all at once.
Traditional SDLC and its Challenges
Traditional Software Development Life Cycle has its own set of challenges as it is only concerned with software functionality. Requirements pertaining to the underlying systems and infrastructure, although addressed, are dealt within a technology silo. Similarly, availability, usability, support and training requirements are handled separately by operations. Continuous collaboration is reduced to an orchestrated intervention driven approach.
New Age SDLC Framework
Capability barriers associated with traditional SDLC methodologies have enforced an intrinsic evolution of thought in the manner banks approach business solutions. The Software Development Life Cycle would need to mature to a new framework that entails Business, Technology and the Operations world working together in a “Single Enterprise Model”.
This enterprise model would be formulated by integrating the activities in each of the worlds, which were prior accomplished through a series of synchronized interjections. Consider a scenario where a product manager while thinking through the real business case, would have the IT and operations team plugged in to the conversations. This would ensure that the plausible solutions are weighed against each other on parameters conforming to technical feasibility, ease of maintenance, sustainability, usability, training needs et al. Recommendations, thus received, would become inputs to the analytics team to sharpen the insights sought.
Driven from the Top
The onus for a true convergence amongst the stakeholder groups would rest with the leadership team spearheaded by the program manager along with representation from each of the pillars, as shown in the Enterprise Model above. The stakeholders outside the Application Development Group would then not only contribute by defining the requirements at the beginning, and validating that they have been met at the end; but also through concurrent engagement along aspects relating to continuity of requirements, solution formulation, architectural compulsions, underlying technology and identifying training needs amongst many others to sail through the entire life cycle.
Adoption of the new age SDLC framework can help achieve faster requirement gathering, enhanced development, testing practices and lower defect slippage.