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Orange County Information Technologies Strategic Plan <br />These commercial offerings, sometimes known as <br />Commercial Off the Shelf (COTS) programs are mature, <br />fully featured and offer strong vendor support. <br />In order to address this shift, OCIT needs to continue to <br />evolve its expertise for project management, including <br />requirements analysis, contract evaluation, and vendor <br />management. <br />Some remaining enhancement and small-scale <br />development will persist. These enhancement activities <br />should focus on current technologies, such as the <br />Microsoft .net environment, Java and Python. <br />Orange County needs to address application <br />development that is performed by departments outside of <br />IT. The current lack of formal development methodology <br />creates a significant exposure for the County. This ad hoc <br />approach to software development produces application <br />code that is difficult to maintain and troubleshoot by <br />persons other than the original developer. Should that <br />singular resource become unavailable, departmental <br />processes could be adversely affected, recovery time <br />lengthy and cost of recovery significant. <br />Orange County must ensure that all development <br />activities are conducted within a framework of proven <br />formal software development methodologies, including full <br />design documentation, regression testing, code review, <br />release management and a full life cycle support plan. <br />With such a development context in place, Orange <br />County can ensure these business critical applications <br />are supportable beyond the availability of a single <br />resource. <br />Business Analysis <br />Because of the recommended emphasis on implementing <br />COTS applications, there is a need for business analysis <br />within OCIT. This business analysis requires the adoption <br />of new skillsets, which will become the underlying <br />methodology by which new technologies are researched <br />and deployed. <br />13 <br />Page 12 of 25 12/1/2008 <br />