US 2014/0278819 A1 · Alternate Scenario Analysis for Project Management

Abstract

A system for generating and analyzing alternate project management scenarios at a high level, or a “What If Tool” (WIT) System. The WIT System enhances project management tools by providing simple and reversible scenario generation, analysis, and comparison for complex projects and portfolios. The WIT System imports and transforms the project management information from an external project management tool into collections at a user-defined level while retaining relevant constraints and relationships. The WIT System allows the user to generate and compare alternate constraint and timeline scenarios at a high level without involving all detailed elements of the original project management information, which is often time and cost prohibitive. The differences between scenarios may be visualized and reported to enhance the decision making process. The WIT System also allows the original project management information to be updated based on a scenario.

Claims20

Dependent claims

A method for generating project scenarios and calculating scenario outcomes above the activity level of a project, the method comprising the acts of:

importing detailed project management information, the detailed project management information comprising a plurality of hierarchical levels, hierarchical groups, activities, resources, and relationships, each activity belonging to a hierarchical level and a hierarchical group in the detailed project management information, each relationship defining a link between at least two activities, the activities and resources being distributed over a project time period;
transforming the detailed project management information into a WIT Source comprising a plurality of working level groups at a working level selected from the hierarchical levels in the detailed project management information, each working level group comprising an aggregation of activities from the hierarchical levels below the working level and depending from the hierarchical group corresponding to that working level group;
and
manipulating the WIT Source to generate an alternate scenario differing from a baseline scenario associated with the detailed project management information and calculate a scenario outcome using the working level groups instead of the activities;
and
reporting the scenario outcome.

3 more elements

A system for transforming detailed schedules specifying activities, resources, and relationships at various hierarchical levels in a project into summary schedules facilitating efficient evaluation of alternate scenarios, the system comprising:

a transform module operable to aggregate activities from the detailed schedules into working level groups at a working level selected from the plurality of hierarchical levels and generate working level group relationships corresponding to logical links between activities placed in different working level groups;
a manipulate module operable to generate an alternate scenario based on changes to a project constraint or project timeline supplied by a user and calculate an outcome for the alternate scenario using the working level groups and working level group relationships;
and
a report module operable to display visualizations of the outcome.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Alternate Scenario Analysis for Project Management

Life of this patent

Alternate Scenario Analysis for Project Management

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims20