The Six Phases of a Y2K Project (according to Micro Focus Consulting)

LAUNCH: Project guidelines and standards are established.

The Launch is the planning and organization phase to establish project guidelines and standards.

Launch phase begins with creating a clear understanding of the project goals.

During this phase, sometimes called the Awareness phase, the conversion team begins to identify resources, create project plans, and review current and future development and maintenance projects in light of the Y2K project.

This is also the time to evaluate tools, methodologies, partners and vendors relative to your current development processes.

During this initial phase, you truly become aware of the complexity and enormity of the task unfolding before you.

ASSESSMENT PHASE: Initial review of the systems and preliminary estimation of date field exposures.

While the Launch phase is when you become aweare of the task unfolding, it is during the Assessment phase that you quantify the exposure.

These tasks address how to build the analytical environmnet and the initial search for dates.

The source modules and related components are loaded into Revolve databases, creating an application inventory.

The Revolve tool identifies any missing components from the assembled system(s), giving the analysts a means to resolve any missing items. In some instances, source code may not be available, requiring creative solutions.

DETAILED ANALYSIS: Provides exact identification and testing of each date filed affected by the century change.

In this phase, you expand the scope and criteria beyond the requirements of the high-level assessment, which may require more sophisticated tools.

Any variable, literal, or constant thought to be date-related is researched and evaluated.

Date-related items are tagged for future review and change.

RENOVATION PHASE:Proceeds with modification and testing each module until all systems are compliant.

Renovation phase identifies tasks required for source code modification.

The amount of time required for modification depends upon code complexity, the skills of available personnel, and the available software developnment tools. Alos included are the task related to testing renovated applications.

Testing requirements should be defined during the Launch phase and reviewed prior to starting code renovation.

The requirements vary depending on the approach, type of application and complexity of date involvement within the application.

IMPLEMENTATION/ROLLOUT: Brings the modified systems back into production and positions disaster recovery standards to guard against the repercursions of system failure.

During this Implementation/Rollout phase, review your production turnover procedures and recovery plan.

Continuity plans are developed for every business process 'just in case' the modifications cannot be delivered on time.

You may consider a parallel production period to encompass a complete business cycle.

COMPLIANCE TRACKING: Provides assurance that Y2K conmplaince remains intact past the point of concern.

Finally, Compliance Tracking phase provides a means to verify that new Y2K sensitivities are not introduced after going through all the effort to fix the applications.

Y2K compliance will remain an issue past the point of potential failure.

"About 10% of Year 2000 repairs will trigger the accidental injection of a new defect."