Concept: Systems Engineering - Lifecycle Objectives Milestone
This guideline discusses the evaluation criteria for the Lifecycle Objectives Milestone at the end of the inception phase. The state of the essential artifacts is also described for a Systems Engineering project.
Main Description

At the end of the Inception Phase is the first major project milestone or Lifecycle Objectives Milestone. At this point, you examine the lifecycle objectives of the project, and decide either to proceed with the project or to cancel it.

Evaluation Criteria

  • Stakeholder concurrence on scope definition and cost/schedule estimates.
  • Agreement that the right set of core requirements have been captured and that there is a shared understanding of these requirements.
  • Agreement that the cost and schedule estimates, priorities, risks, and development process are appropriate.
  • All major risks have been identified, and a mitigation strategy exists for each.

The project may be aborted or considerably re-thought if it fails to reach this milestone.

Artifacts

Essential Artifacts (in order of importance)

State at Milestone

Vision The project's core requirements, key features, and main constraints are documented.

Subsystem Vision

These are the preliminary Vision artifacts for the subsystems tentatively identified in system inception.

Business Case Defined and approved.
Risk List Initial project risks identified.

Software Development Plan / System Development Plan

Initial phases, their durations and objectives identified. Resource estimates (specifically the time, staff, and development environment costs in particular) in the Software Development Plan/System Development Plan must be consistent with the Business Case.

The System Development Plan is produced when the system scope includes more than software, and a systems engineering approach is taken. Subordinate Software Development Plans are produced at the end of the Inception Phases for software subsystem development.

The resource estimate may encompass either the entire project through delivery, or only an estimate of resources needed to go through the Elaboration Phase. Estimates of the resources required for the entire project should be viewed as very rough, a "guesstimate" at this point. This estimate is updated in each phase and each iteration, and becomes more accurate with each iteration. 

Depending on the needs of the project, one or more of the enclosed "Plan" artifacts may be conditionally completed. An initial  Product Acceptance Plan should be reviewed and baselined. The Product Acceptance plan is refined in subsequent iterations as additional requirements are discovered.

In addition, the enclosed "Guidelines" artifacts are typically in at least a "draft" form.

Iteration Plan Iteration plan for first Elaboration iteration completed and reviewed.
 Development Case Adaptations and extensions to the Rational Unified Process, documented and reviewed. 
 Tools All tools to support the project are selected. The tools necessary for work in Elaboration are installed.
Glossary Important terms defined; glossary reviewed.
Use-Case Model Important actors and use cases identified and flows of events outlined for only the most critical use cases.
Project Repository, Change Request The Configuration Management environment should be set up.

Optional Artifacts

State at Milestone

Project Specific Templates  The document templates used to develop the document artifacts.
Prototypes, for example, System Architecture Proof-of-Concept One or more proof-of-concept prototypes, to support the Vision and Business Case, and to address very specific risks.

For systems engineering, the system architecture work will assist in identifying the subsystems and establishing a preliminary vision for them, so that the Inception phases for subsystem development may begin.