Hey! Software developers!!

[RoboKomodo]

I'm on a work term with the project management office of my provincial governments office of the chief information officer.
My boss wants me to do some research into what she's called "Lifecycle management". While we can predict to some reasonable degree how long it will take to develop a solution through to the end of the system development lifecycle (SDLC), it's a lot harder to predict how long a solution will last, i.e, when the technology is going to be obsolete.

Does anyone have any insight into this, or know of any tools or methodologies that organizations or business use to predict this kind of stuff? I know it's not something that you can nail down with any level of certainty, but any insight would be valuable!

 

[strawman]

I suspect your best (and only) hope is to get a book on it, and reference that heavily. The issue is that when you come up with your report, they're going to be asking how you reached your conclusions, and you'll need something other than "Some software expert on the intertubes told me."

Also, check out programmers.stackexchange.com and ask there. You should be able to get some pointers in the right direction.

 

[Chibibar]

at first I thought you are looking at the software called Lifecycle Managment (also known as Pivotal) I was gonna say, stay far far away from them.

 

[RoboKomodo]

I suspect your best (and only) hope is to get a book on it, and reference that heavily. The issue is that when you come up with your report, they're going to be asking how you reached your conclusions, and you'll need something other than "Some software expert on the intertubes told me."

Also, check out programmers.stackexchange.com and ask there. You should be able to get some pointers in the right direction.

Yeah, that was going to be the direction I would take.
It isn't so much a formal report, as much as answering the question: "Is it being done elsewhere? And can we do what they do?"

 

[strawman]

Oh, I see. Yeah, there are books on it that should enlighten you. The defense industry also has publications and extensive research on this topic, and most of it should be available for free (public dollars and all that).

Here's the one I subscribe to: http://www.crosstalkonline.org/ and they have their entire content and archives online, so go to http://www.crosstalkonline.org/search/ and type in lifecycle or life cycle and prepare to be overwhelmed.

If nothing else, reading through a few relevant articles will teach you the lingo and concepts so that you can ask better questions when you get to the books, or start consulting with an expert.