David Pasek
IT System Architect and Designer
who believes, and has practical experience, that a good plan, design and implementation of any system requires a clearly defined methodology and procedures in subsequent phases, which is definitely not appropriate to omit or skip.
#1 - Idea workshop
There is always an idea in the beginning. In order for something to come out of an idea, it is good to have a constructive discussion and evaluate whether it is worth implemeting it or not.
#2 - Conceptual Design
If the idea is worthy of implementation, then design should begin with basic concept so that the expectations between the investor and the implementers are set correctly.
Within the conceptual design, it is necessary to document specific use cases, requirements, constraints and assumptions.
#3 - Prototypes & Proof of Concept
When there is agreement on the basic concept, it is worth to prepare a prototype and perform the so-called "Proof of Concept" and verify that the concept under consideration makes sense.
#4 - Logical Design
Logical design describes the proposed system in more detail than conceptual, but without physical details.
Logical design must include logical specifications and functionality of the system as well as its capacity and performance characteristics along with designed system limits nad maximums.
#5 - Physical Design
The physical design adds physical specifications of system components from which the newly designed system is finally built.
Bill of material is necessary to eventually build the system.
#6 - Design Validation & Test Plan
Before design implementation, it is appropriate to prepare design validation and test plan with the expected results the proposed system should show after the implementation.
#7 - Implementation
And when everything is nicely designed, it is finally possible to implement the system based on the original idea.
#8 - Validation & Knowledge Transfer
After implementation, the design validation and test plan should test usability, resiliency and performance of implemented system.
Validation tests also work as a knowledge transfer to system operators.
#9 - Refactoring
After implementation, it is necessary to monitor the system, collect feedback from users and repeat the entire methodological process, and thus continuously improve the system.