Stage 5: Growth
Blocker
The team can’t improve the development life cycle independently.
Solution
Development life cycle is evolving based on feedback.
Evolve Development Lifecycle
Reaching the point where the entire System Development Lifecycle (SDLC) is mapped can feel like the work is complete.
In reality, this is where the next phase begins.
At this stage, the goal is to ensure that the team can continually adapt and improve the SDLC.
A static SDLC quickly becomes outdated.
To maintain agility, the lifecycle must evolve based on real-world feedback and identified improvement opportunities.
There are 7 stages in a System Development Lifecycle
Mapping Ownership Across the SDLC
For each stage in the System Development Lifecycle (SDLC), we have defined the following:
OWNERSHIP – Who is responsible for this stage?
This ensures accountability and prevents work from being “dropped” or handled ad hoc.
PROCESS – What steps are followed?
This makes the work repeatable, consistent, and transparent.
WORK ITEM (INPUT / OUTPUT) – What goes into the stage, and what comes out?
This clarifies handoffs and dependencies.
DEPENDENCY – What other stages, teams, or tools does this stage rely on
Understanding dependencies reduces bottlenecks and surprises.
COMMUNICATION (FEEDBACK) – How are results shared and feedback captured?
Ensures learning, iteration, and alignment across teams.
GATHER: Collect ideas, run customer interviews, and capture insights.
DEFINE: Write features and break them down into clear user stories.
DESIGN: Plan architecture, create UX/UI designs, prepare technical specs.
DEVELOP: Code the feature or product increment.
TEST: Run QA, UAT, and integration tests to ensure quality.
RELEASE: Deploy, version, and communicate the release.
SUPPORT: Monitor bugs, analyze usage, gather customer feedback.
Identifying and Addressing Bottlenecks
Once the SDLC is mapped, the focus shifts to identifying areas that limit efficiency or predictability.
These bottlenecks can occur at any stage — for example, delays in gathering customer insights, approval wait times, environment setup issues, or slow feedback loops.
Approach to Improvement:
Identify bottlenecks – Detect where delays or inefficiencies occur.
Prioritise issues – Address the most critical bottlenecks first based on their impact.
Refine using the Micro–Macro Mission template – Ensure improvements are well-scoped and actionable.
Assign responsibility – Allocate specific ownership to team members or stakeholders for each improvement action.
Update documentation – Reflect changes in both the SDLC and the Roles & Responsibilities Builder.
New bottleneck – Once the current issue is resolved, identify the next most impactful bottleneck and repeat the process.
