MajormilestonesThese system wide events are held at the end of each development phase. They provide visibility to system wide issues, synchronize the management and engineering perspectives, and verify that the aims of thephase have been achieved.
Minormilestones Theseiteration-focused events are conducted to review the content of an iteration indetail and to authorize continued work. MAJORMILESTONESThefour major milestones occur at the transition points between life-cycle phases.They can be used in many different process models, including the conventionalwaterfall model.
In an iterative model, the major milestones are used toachieve concurrence among all stakeholders on the current state of the project.Different stakeholders have very different concerns:Customers:schedule and budget estimates, feasibility, risk assessment, requirementsunderstanding, progress, product line compatibility Users:consistency with requirements and usage scenarios, potential for accommodatinggrowth, quality attributes Architectsand systems engineers: product line compatibility, requirements changes, trade-offanalyses, completeness and consistency,balance among risk, quality, and usability Developers: sufficiency of requirements detail and usage scenario descriptions, frameworks for component selection or development, resolution of development risk, product line compatibility,sufficiency of the development environmentMaintainers:sufficiency of product and documentation artifacts, understandability, interoperabilitywith existing systems, sufficiency of maintenance environment Others: possibly many other perspectives by stakeholders such as regulatory agencies, independent verification and validation contractors, venture capital investors, subcontractors, associatecontractors, and sales and marketing teams Life-CycleObjectives MilestoneThe life-cycleobjectives milestone occurs at the end of the inception phase. The goal is topresent to all stakeholders a recommendation on how to proceed withdevelopment, including a plan, estimated cost and schedule, and expectedbenefits and cost savings. A successfully completed life-cycle objectivesmilestone will result in authorization from all stakeholders to proceed withthe elaboration phase. Life-CycleArchitecture MilestoneThe life-cyclearchitecture milestone occurs at the end of the elaboration phase.
The primarygoal is to demonstrate an executable architecture to all stakeholders. Thebaseline architecture consists of both a human-readable representation (thearchitecture document) and a configuration-controlled set of software componentscaptured in the engineering artifacts. A successfully completed life-cyclearchitecture milestone will result in authorization from the stakeholders toproceed with the construction phase.
InitialOperational Capability MilestoneThe initialoperational capability milestone occurs late in the construction phase. Thegoals are to assess the readiness of the software to begin the transition intocustomer/user sites and to authorize the start of acceptance testing.Acceptance testing can be done incrementally across multiple iterations or canbe completed entirely during the transition phase is not necessarily thecompletion of the construction phase. Product ReleaseMilestoneThe productrelease milestone occurs at the end of the transition phase. The goal is toassess the completion of the software and its transition to the supportorganization, if any. The results of acceptance testing are reviewed, and allopen issues are addressed.
Software quality metrics are reviewed to determinewhether quality is sufficient for transition to the support organization.MINORMILESTONESFor mostiterations, which have a one-month to six-month duration, only two minormilestones are needed: the iteration readiness review and the iterationassessment review.· Iteration Readiness Review. Thisinformal milestone is conducted at the start of each iteration to review thedetailed iteration plan and the evaluation criteria that have been allocated tothis iteration.
· Iteration Assessment Review. Thisinformal milestone is conducted at the end of each iteration to assess thedegree to which the iteration achieved its objectives and satisfied itsevaluation criteria, to review iteration results, to review qualification testresults (if part of the iteration), to determine the amount of rework to bedone, and to review the impact of the iteration results on the plan forsubsequent iterations.The format andcontent of these minor milestones tend to be highly dependent on the projectand the organizational culture.
identifies the various minor milestones to beconsidered when a project is being planned.
