Patent Application
20120316905
Businesses have experienced programs that fall behind schedule and exceed budget requirements, sometimes called “red programs,” due to lack of access to standard criteria to guide work product development and system design. Work product can take many forms including plans, specifications, trade studies, concept and design documents, schematics, annotated software code, and test reports. Proposal estimates often lack plans which define a list of standard design tasks and work products and more often lack work product standard criteria and standard design maturity criteria. Lack of these criteria can result in work products that have to be modified later in the life cycle and at much greater expense to meet defined requirements. These criteria should be defined in the planning phase. Standard design maturity criteria are also lacking for major development milestones in a life cycle.
Even though processes and standards for development may have been defined in documents for many years, accessing these documents is usually difficult and discouraging. There is lack of interactive guidance to lead a person to the correct document and section in a document which is relative to their development needs. Time and budget are also wasted to develop the work products and design without standard criteria for guidance. Subjectivity is used to evaluate and status the progressive maturity of work products versus specific criteria. Also, frequent status meetings are scheduled, which take time for preparation and presentation.
Assessments on the progress of work product development and design maturity are frequently subjective. Technical issues and risks often are not realized until it is too late to take proactive action. Lack of access to the assessment criteria and lack of access to the progressive status of the work product and design throughout the program life cycle are major problems to overcome for a program to be successful.
The subject technology addresses the foregoing problem of accessing criteria, providing quality assessments based on the criteria and accessing the assessment status on a 24/7 basis. According to certain aspects of the subject technology, a system is provided for defining a method or concept to access criteria efficiently to use as a guide for work product and design development. The same criteria may be used to perform and document quality assessments. An interactive user interface is provided to quickly review the assessment status of a rollup of work products and design per milestone events throughout the life cycle of a project. The system further provides quick access to project product standards, examples, templates, and requirements comprising the command media.
According to one aspect of the subject technology, a web-based visualization tool is provided to display the maturity status of a program and provide quick access to the program information. The tool may include milestone views, links to work products and schedule data, links to command media (templates, guidance docs, etc.), links to event maturity criteria, and displays of maturity assessments. The tool may be provided at an enterprise level in hypertext markup language (HTML) form to access criteria for tailoring individual programs. The tool may be downloadable to a program server from an enterprise server to provide the foregoing capabilities. The tool may be configured to import specific program information from program master schedules in order to populate milestone views, assessment views, and search engines. The tool may be configured to provide access control with user privileges, defined for each user. Users may include administrators, assessors, practitioners, and stakeholders (management, customers, etc.). The servers may be maintained under IT configuration management control and backed up daily.
It is understood that other configurations of the subject technology will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art from the following detailed description, wherein various configurations of the subject technology are shown and described by way of illustration. As will be realized, the subject technology is capable of other and different configurations and its several details are capable of modification in various other respects, all without departing from the scope of the subject technology. Accordingly, the drawings and detailed description are to be regarded as illustrative in nature and not as restrictive.
According to another embodiment, a system for providing a hierarchical project technical evaluation tool comprises an application for obtaining technical assessment data, a hierarchical project evaluation tool application, a file importation and conversion device, and a project integrated master schedule. The application obtains technical assessment data for work products of a project and stores the technical assessment data to a data repository. The hierarchical project evaluation tool application generates a project technical status based on the assessment data in the data repository. The hierarchical project technical evaluation tool application is in communication with the data repository. The file importation and conversion device is in communication with the data repository. The file importation and conversion device converts data files to a useable format within the hierarchical project evaluation tool application. The project integrated master schedule is in communication with the file importation and conversion device and provides data to the data repository for use with the hierarchical project evaluation tool application. The project integrated master schedule has a plurality of tasks to be completed for a project and a plurality of milestones for the project.
The detailed description set forth below is intended as a description of various configurations of the subject technology and is not intended to represent the only configurations in which the subject technology may be practiced. The appended drawings are incorporated herein and constitute a part of the detailed description. The detailed description includes specific details for the purpose of providing a thorough understanding of the subject technology. However, it will be apparent to those skilled in the art that the subject technology may be practiced without these specific details. In some instances, well-known structures and components are shown in block diagram form in order to avoid obscuring the concepts of the subject technology. Like components are labeled with identical element numbers for ease of understanding.
In the aerospace industry, for example, meeting program or project milestones is critical. Payments may be associated with milestones and programs/projects risk cancellation if the milestones are not met. Not surprisingly, product development teams in the aerospace industry focus on successfully completing program milestones on time, within budget and meeting all technical specifications as proven through assessments. There are many commercial-off-the-shelf program management tools used for program management and business process management. Examples of these tools include Microsoft Project, Primavera, or ARIS by IDS Scheer AG. These tools calculate critical paths, earned value, and project execution, but it often takes in-depth knowledge of the tool and analysis to determine if the program is on track to meet critical milestones. Additionally, the tool must be activated to determine the current status.
Many project members do not have the skills and patience to interpret the results from these tools especially for the project tasks that they are associated with. This means that program managers must interpret the outputs and provide feedback to team members. This detaches team members from the planned effort and from what needs to be done from an individual team member's point of view for program success.
There is also subjectivity, time lag, and duplication of effort associated with current program management tools. When a task is partially complete, usually a percent complete is entered for in-process tasks in the program management tool. To reduce the subjectivity, tasks are broken into very small pieces or a single task has non-subjective assessments assigned for certain levels of completeness. These assessments are usually entered in one system and their status (whether the work product passed its specified criteria or not) is then manually entered into the program management tool usually as just part of the status of a high level rollup task. Since this is a manual effort, there is a time lag between when an assessment is made and when it is entered into the program management system. This prevents the program management system from giving real time visibility into assessments and prevents or delays program management personnel from taking proactive actions to remedy project development maturity issues.
Project schedules entered into program management systems are composed of many tasks and work products. The tasks can be grouped in many different hierarchical structures. For instance, tasks in a schedule can be grouped in a hierarchical structure based on: Work Breakdown Structure (WBS) hierarchy, grouping of tasks in a decomposition hierarchy where the parent task is a summary of its children, program and technical milestone hierarchy, project task hierarchy, project team hierarchy, work product development hierarchy, and predecessor/successor relationship to name a few. A single task in the schedule may appear in many hierarchies. So a task called “make project outline” can appear near the top of the product hierarchy for the product project outline and possibly near the bottom of a work breakdown structure.
Project team members prefer to see the tasks they are associated with (and their associated status) in a familiar hierarchy. A project lead may want to see their tasks in a project team hierarchy or WBS hierarchy, while a product manager may want to see their tasks in a product hierarchy. Each task in a hierarchy has a status that is composed of the status of their children and their own work products. Therefore, if a WBS child task is red (meaning it did not pass an assessment, or passed its due date, or has a child task or work product that is red) the WBS parent task could also be red (depending on a defined status “rolled-up” algorithm). Since the same task has different children, depending on the hierarchy that is being viewed, the task can be one status in one hierarchy (say red) while a different status in another hierarchy, such as if the parent tasks have different scheduled completion dates.
The subject technology is designed to provide team members with the resources to accomplish their job. According to one aspect, the subject technology displays, at a glance, the program schedule in a choice of hierarchical views that individual team members are familiar and includes simple icons showing the status of whether the tasks are on track to meet project technical milestones. The subject technology may have the capability to drill down to the any actual problem areas based on the status of a particular icon. The subject technology may be fully integrated with a work product assessment tool to automatically update status based on non-subjective assessments in real time. The subject technology may have the capability to rapidly import the program integrated master schedule from a commercial Program Management Tool. The subject technology may provide access to corporate repositories of work product tools, examples, references, processes, and assessment criteria to facilitate reuse. The subject technology may be web based with the capability to be placed on the project's individual home page.
As discussed above, the subject technology is provided for the purpose of watching over the maturity development of a program, to insure that design and work product development is accomplished to meet standards for work product and design maturity criteria. Capabilities for the subject technology may be developed from a model depicting user scenarios. Users may include administrators, assessors, practitioners, stake holders and customers. Concept views of a user interface for various scenarios are described below in connection with accompanying figures.
According to one aspect of the subject technology, the tool may be launched from a browser or a home page related to the program. Once launched, an HTML screen such as the one shown in
The rows of tasks or projects 12 are broken down into hierarchical projects 16. Each hierarchical project 16 may be further expanded into a number of tasks that define the hierarchical project 16. A status indicator 18 may be provided for each hierarchical task 16 at each applicable project milestone 14. The status indicator 18 may be color coded, such that a user is quickly made aware of the status of the hierarchical project 16 for the applicable project milestone 14. For instance, a blue status indicator 18 may indicate that a hierarchical project 16 is fully compliant with the standards for that project milestone 14, a green status indicator 18 may indicate that a hierarchical project 16 is generally compliant with the standards for that project milestone 14, a yellow status indicator 18 may indicate that a hierarchical project 16 is minimally compliant with the standards for that project milestone 14, a red status indicator 18 may indicate that a hierarchical project 16 is not compliant with the standards for that project milestone 14, and a gray status indicator 18 may indicate that no assessment has been made as to whether a hierarchical project 16 is compliant with the standards for that project milestone 14. Thus, a user is able to quickly determine the state of compliance of the hierarchical project 16.
As shown in
Also as shown in
A history tab 36 is depicted in
A Work Product Filter 46 is depicted in
A process metrics milestone view 74 is shown in
A project integrated master schedule 92 is typically the basis for all other information located on or accessed by the data repository 88. The project integrated master schedule (IMS) 92 may be created in a commercially available project management software, such as Microsoft Project, Microsoft Excel, Oracle Primavera, Deltec Open Plan, and others. Once the IMS 92 is imported to the data repository 88 an algorithm may be run by the file importation and conversion device 90 to verify the data of the IMS 92 is complete, such that there are no missing successor links for project tasks, that tasks and work product names are specified, and tasks are properly linked to milestones. The file importation and conversion device 90 may also associate project IMS 92 task work products to program milestones based on the predecessor/successor relations contained in the master schedule.
An administrator may also review the IMS 92 once it has been communicated to the data repository 88 in order to observe any additional errors in the IMS 92, or problems with the communication of the IMS 92 to the data repository 88. Correcting any deficiencies with the IMS 92 before the project has advanced beyond the initial planning stages may greatly improve overall project performance.
A work product archive 94 is also in communication with the conversion device 90 and the data repository 88. The work product archive 94 may be configured to store information related to tasks 16 and milestones 14 of a project. For instance, the work product archive 94 may contain records generated in performing a task, such as software code, product design information, CAD models, presentations, and the like. The work product archive 94 may thus be utilized to store information for each task 16 of the project. The file importation and conversion device 90 may access the data stored on the work product archive 94 to allow a user to review the work product, such as by selecting a hyperlink related to the task 16.
A work standards archive 96 is also in communication with the file importation and conversion device 90 and the data repository 88. The work standards archive 96 may contain information about tasks 16 and milestones 14 of a project, such as customer requirements for a task, design standards for a task, cost requirements for a task, technical specifications for a task, and internal company standards and procedures for a task. The file importation and conversion device 90 may access the data stored on the work standards archive 96 to allow a user to evaluate standards for a project. For instance, a design engineer may access the work standards archive 96 in order to determine capabilities of a product he or she is designing. Similarly, a person tasked with evaluating a completed design may access both the work product archive 94 to view the design and related information, and the work standards archive 96 in order to properly determine if the design meets all required criteria.
The system 86 further comprises a web server 99. The web server 99 may be in communication with the data repository 88 and the file importation and conversion device 90. The web server 99 may also contain a version of the application found on the data repository 88 to allow access to the various data stored on the data repository 88.
An assessment application 98 may also be provided that is in communication with the web server 99 and the data repository 88. The assessment application 98 may be provided at a different location from the web server 99 and the data repository 88. The assessment application allows for inputting of work product assessment data and performs processing to determining task status associated with the assessment data. When a new or modified assessment is communicated to the assessment application 98, the status of all associated tasks within the data repository 88 are updated and made available for display by the web server 99.
A local computer 100 is in communication with the local network server 99. The local computer allows a user to access the data repository 88 and run the hierarchical project evaluation tool and to access the data stored in the IMS 92, the work product archive 94, and the work standards archive 96. The user may then create additional work product that may be stored in the IMS 92, the work product archive 94, and the work standards archive 96. Further the user may quickly view the overall status of the project based on the program milestone view 10, as shown in
Turning now to
In order to provide additional instructions to a user, it is contemplated that a help page or a web based help or instruction page may be provided. The web based help or instruction page may be a “wiki” in that users may provide comments and information to other fellow users that may be useful for the operation of the technical maturity management system.
It is further contemplated that a project administrator may create and maintain a hierarchical project evaluation tool. The administrator may create a new project on a web server and import relevant technical requirement and evaluation criteria to the web server or a data repository and ensure that the hierarchical project evaluation tool is being utilized by members of a technical program to evaluate the technical status of the program. The administrator can also verify the status information by reviewing assessment data and project standards data. The administrator may also control any updates to the hierarchical project evaluation tool, such as new software releases. Thus, the hierarchical project evaluation tool may be maintained completely by members of program team without the need for extensive outside information technology resources.
Those of skill in the art would appreciate that the various illustrative blocks, modules, elements, components, methods, and algorithms described herein may be implemented as electronic hardware, computer software, or combinations of both. To illustrate this interchangeability of hardware and software, various illustrative blocks, modules, elements, components, methods, and algorithms have been described above generally in terms of their functionality. Whether such functionality is implemented as hardware or software depends upon the particular application and design constraints imposed on the overall system. Skilled artisans may implement the described functionality in varying ways for each particular application. Various components and blocks may be arranged differently (e.g., arranged in a different order, or partitioned in a different way) all without departing from the scope of the subject technology.
Electronic hardware used to implement the various illustrative blocks, modules, elements, components, methods, and algorithms may include a processor configured to execute one or more sequences of instructions or code stored on computer/machine readable media. The processor may be a general-purpose microprocessor, a microcontroller, a Digital Signal Processor (DSP), an Application Specific Integrated Circuit (ASIC), a Field Programmable Gate Array (FPGA), a Programmable Logic Device (PLD), a controller, a state machine, gated logic, discrete hardware components, or any other suitable entity that can perform calculations or other manipulations of information. The electronic hardware may further include a memory, such as a Random Access Memory (RAM), a flash memory, a Read Only Memory (ROM), a Programmable Read-Only Memory (PROM), an Erasable PROM (EPROM), registers, a hard disk, a removable disk, a CD-ROM, a DVD, or any other suitable storage device, coupled to a bus for storing information and instructions to be executed by a processor.
The algorithm may be implemented by a processor executing one or more sequences of instructions or code contained in a memory. Such instructions may be read into the memory from another machine-readable medium. Execution of the sequences of instructions contained in the memory may cause the processor to perform the process steps described herein. One or more processors in a multi-processing arrangement may also be employed to execute the sequences of instructions contained in the memory. In alternative embodiments, hard-wired circuitry may be used in place of or in combination with software instructions to implement various embodiments of the present disclosure. Thus, embodiments of the present disclosure are not limited to any specific combination of hardware circuitry and software.
The term “machine-readable medium” or “computer-readable medium” as used herein refers to any medium or media that participates in providing instructions to a processor for execution. Such a medium may take many forms, including, but not limited to, non-volatile media, volatile media, and transmission media. Non-volatile media include, for example, optical or magnetic disks. Volatile media include dynamic memory. Transmission media include coaxial cables, copper wire, and fiber optics, including the wires that comprise a bus. Common forms of machine-readable media include, for example, floppy disk, a flexible disk, hard disk, magnetic tape, any other magnetic medium, a CD-ROM, DVD, any other optical medium, punch cards, paper tape, any other physical medium with patterns of holes, a RAM, a PROM, an EPROM, a FLASH EPROM, any other memory chip or cartridge, or any other medium from which a computer or processor can read.
It is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the processes disclosed is an illustration of exemplary approaches. Based upon design preferences, it is understood that the specific order or hierarchy of steps in the processes may be rearranged. Some of the steps may be performed simultaneously. The accompanying method claims present elements of the various steps in a sample order, and are not meant to be limited to the specific order or hierarchy presented.
The previous description is provided to enable any person skilled in the art to practice the various aspects described herein. The previous description provides various examples of the subject technology, and the subject technology is not limited to these examples. Various modifications to these aspects will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art, and the generic principles defined herein may be applied to other aspects. Thus, the claims are not intended to be limited to the aspects shown herein, but is to be accorded the full scope consistent with the language claims, wherein reference to an element in the singular is not intended to mean “one and only one” unless specifically so stated, but rather “one or more.” Unless specifically stated otherwise, the term “some” refers to one or more. Pronouns in the masculine (e.g., his) include the feminine and neuter gender (e.g., her and its) and vice versa. Headings and subheadings, if any, are used for convenience only and do not limit the invention.
A phrase such as an “aspect” does not imply that such aspect is essential to the subject technology or that such aspect applies to all configurations of the subject technology. A disclosure relating to an aspect may apply to all configurations, or one or more configurations. An aspect may provide one or more examples. A phrase such as an aspect may refer to one or more aspects and vice versa. A phrase such as an “embodiment” does not imply that such embodiment is essential to the subject technology or that such embodiment applies to all configurations of the subject technology. A disclosure relating to an embodiment may apply to all embodiments, or one or more embodiments. An embodiment may provide one or more examples. A phrase such as an embodiment may refer to one or more embodiments and vice versa. A phrase such as a “configuration” does not imply that such configuration is essential to the subject technology or that such configuration applies to all configurations of the subject technology. A disclosure relating to a configuration may apply to all configurations, or one or more configurations. A configuration may provide one or more examples. A phrase such as a configuration may refer to one or more configurations and vice versa.
The word “exemplary” is used herein to mean “serving as an example or illustration.” Any aspect or design described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects or designs.
All structural and functional equivalents to the elements of the various aspects described throughout this disclosure that are known or later come to be known to those of ordinary skill in the art are expressly incorporated herein by reference and are intended to be encompassed by the claims. Moreover, nothing disclosed herein is intended to be dedicated to the public. Furthermore, to the extent that the term “include,” “have,” or the like is used in the description, such term is intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term “comprise” as “comprise” is interpreted when employed as a transitional word in a claim.
This application is a divisional application of U.S. application Ser. No. 13/208,307, filed Aug. 11, 2011, entitled “Technical Maturity Management System,” which claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/373,159 filed Aug. 12, 2010, which is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61373159 | Aug 2010 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 13208307 | Aug 2011 | US |
| Child | 13544927 | US |
