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Building an Enterprise Life Cycle Methodology

Glenn Himes and Michael Swelfer

  
Figure 1

The ELC methodology uses a seven-step process. Each step requires management and technical oversight.

Our response was to work with CBP to develop an enterprise life cycle (ELC) framework and map its existing processes to an ELC methodology (ELCM). The purpose of an ELCM is to integrate enterprise-wide management, business, and engineering life cycle processes so that IT activities are aligned with CBP's mission and business goals.

MITRE developed the overall framework for the Customs ELCM on the basis of several industry standard system engineering process models. We abstracted information from these models and added components that extended the standard life cycle descriptions to an enterprise-level methodology. The figure above illustrates the top-level processes included in our ELCM.

The ELC comprises seven distinct stages, each of which requires completion of specific criteria prior to advancing to the next life cycle stage. During all these phased activities, management and technical oversight are performed to ensure compliance, integration, and cohesion across the IT portfolio and legacy systems.

The ELCM ensures that CBP's mission and business needs drive system development and its associated technologies, and not vice versa. Moreover, the ELCM explicitly supports specification of performance measures and evaluation of these measures to determine the extent to which CBP's mission and business goals are supported by its IT portfolio.

 

For more information, please contact Rick Tucker or Dennis Debrosse using the employee directory.


Page last updated: November 12, 2003   |   Top of page

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