The System Development Life Cycle (SDLC) was created to help provide a framework for system development methodologies. The phases include planning, analysis, design, testing/implementation. The DIA was so focused on making a profit from potentially leasing a ‘state of the art’ baggage handling system, that they lost site of the importance of taking their time to design one properly. They should have known better than to ignore the feasibility analysis and took a step back to see how they could scale down the project versus rushing to find
a contactor. That could have been avoided if they had followed the planning or analysis phase of
the SDLC.
Another failure of the planning phase was that they left out the stakeholders as they moved forward with the construction of the system. They left out the construction contractors that moved forward with the construction of the airport allowing for ‘general room’ for the system not knowing exactly where the tracks would go. Having rushed through the planning and
ignoring the analysis phase they kind of set this plan up for failure.
The Agile methodology would have been a great way to proceed with this project. It is flexible and incremental. Agile focuses on collaboration and communication, which existed at a minimum in this case study, that would include stakeholders and construction contractors in consistent meetings about the progress of the project. By having consistent communication throughout the project that could have helped prevented the design with sharp corners preventing
the tracks from being installed as intended and slowing the system down. The feasibility analysis would not have been ignored, helping the planning process and setting realistic deadlines saving money in the long run.
