Project Life Cycle

Step 5: Technical System Design

As the name suggests, here we get technical. The Entity Relationship Diagram (ERD) is refined and a schema created that fully defines the database. Define the required stored procedures (in the case of databases that support them), and the modules to be created and their functions.

Work from the top down, and recurse! Start with the overall system design, then design the modules that make up the system. In UML terms, you should start with your packages, then work down to the classes and sub-classes that implement them. Do the same thing at each level of detail until you run out of detail. Make sure the analysts who will be doing the work have input into the design of the modules they'll be writing.

Iterate! The design may actually change during development, but the changes should attempt to follow the spirit of the Technical System Design, as inherited from the Functional System Design. Use the Revision Control System to maintain changes!

The design phase may last as long or longer than actually writing the program.

Originator: The Contractor.

Deliverables: Technical design documents...

• Technical System Design documents (template)
• Module Design documents (template)
• Design documents include revised Use Cases, Detailed Class Diagrams, Detailed Sequence Diagrams, Deployment Diagrams, Other UML Diagrams as necessary, Pseudocode, etc.

Components:

1. System Specification

   1. Define Data Structures

   2. Define Interfaces

   3. Object Heirarchy

   4. Subsystem/Module Specifications

Step 6: Programming

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