XLC Newcomer's Guide Overview

Welcome. If you’ve never worked on an IT project before, you are in the right place. The XLC offers a simplified consistent IT oversight framework to assist and support the development of IT projects in a flexible and transparent manner.

To understand the overall arc of a project’s development in XLC it is useful to think of five key activities as shown below.

The figure shown above depicts the Five Key Activities associated with the development life cycle of a typical project. Each of the high level activities has specific work associated with it and different stakeholders involved.

Typically, once the idea has been defined, the project is reviewed for architectural compliance and IT investment. Once approved, the project follows the various phases of completion with on-going involvement from appropriate stakeholders. A key feature of the XLC is variable complexity levels to balance speed and oversight appropriately with the complexity and risk of a project. During the initial stages of a project the complexity level will be determined by the Business Owner working with the Division of IT Governance (DITG). This will establish appropriate reviews and artifacts requirements based on the project’s level of complexity.

This figure depicts reviews and project approvals. Each project has a set of reviews and approvals based on the project complexity. This is an iterative process. Each review provides the opportunity to assess project work to date, identify any potential issues, and ultimately approve the project to continue with the next phase of the life cycle.