Method and system for communication prioritization

• US 20060111894A1
• Filed: 11/17/2005
• Published: 05/25/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 11/19/2004
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Definitive Business Solutions LLC
• Original Assignee: Definitive Business Solutions LLC
• Inventors: Bielawa, Thaddeus A. III, Sammarco, John R.
• Application Number:
  US11/280,349
• Publication Number:
  US 20060111894A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 704/9
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 40/258 Heading extraction; Automatic titling; Numbering
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling

Abstract

A computer system for managing workflow relating to a topic shared among a team of users includes a creation unit (109a, 109b, 109c). The creation unit (109a, 109b, 109c) facilitates creating topics (103) and assigning a priority to each of the topics. A topic assignment unit (111a, 111b, 111c) facilitates tasking a topic to an owner, and associating the topic with a team, the owner and the originator being members of the team. A communication production unit (113a, 113b, 113c) facilitates producing communications (101) responsive to the topic and automatically associated with the topic. The communication (101) is initiated by a team member, assigned an urgency reflecting a deadline and an importance selected by the team member, and automatically associated with the priority assigned to the topic. A ranking (115a, 115b, 115c) of the communication relative to the other communications can be automatically calculated

Claims

1. A computer system for managing workflow information, the workflow relating to a topic shared among a team of users, comprising:

a creation unit, configured to facilitate creating a plurality of topics, including assigning a priority to each of the topics;

a topic assignment unit, configured to facilitate tasking, responsive to an originator, a topic to an owner, and associating the topic with a team, the owner and the originator being members of the team; and

a communication production unit, configured to facilitate producing a plurality of communications, including at least one communication, responsive to the topic and automatically associated with the topic, the at least one communication being initiated by a team member, and being assigned an urgency reflecting a deadline and an importance selected by the team member, and automatically associated with the priority assigned to the topic,

wherein the priority is one of a plurality of pre-determined priorities, the urgency is one of a plurality of pre-determined urgencies, and the importance is one of a plurality of pre-determined importances,

wherein a ranking of the at least one communication relative to communications in the plurality of communications can be automatically calculated, in the computer, from a combination of the priority, the urgency, and the importance.

2. The computer system of claim 1, wherein the topic is a project, a task, an action item, or a risk.

3. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising a ranking unit, configured to facilitate the ranking of a portion of the communications in the plurality of communications responsive to a request, wherein the communications in the portion are associated with at least one team, at least one owner, at least one originator, or at least one topic specified in the request.

4. The computer system of claim 1, wherein there are three pre-determined priorities, three pre-determined urgencies, and three pre-determined importances.

5. The computer system of claim 1, further comprising a report unit configured to facilitate preparing a report of communications responsive to a request, including the ranking of a portion of the communications in the plurality of communications, and providing the report including information representative of the communications and topics in the portion and the ranking of the communications,

wherein the communications in the portion are associated with at least one team, at least one owner, at least one originator, or at least one topic specified in the request.

6. A computer-readable medium comprising instructions for execution by a computer, the instructions including a computer-implemented method for managing communications related to status of a plurality of topics, the instructions for implementing:

accessing a plurality of communications, each communication having an urgency reflecting a deadline, an importance, and a priority, the priority being inherited from a corresponding topic of a plurality of topics, wherein the priority is one of a plurality of pre-determined priorities, the urgency is one of a plurality of pre-determined urgencies, and the importance is one of a plurality of pre-determined importances, each communication being associated with the corresponding topic, and each communication being associated with a communication originator;

each topic being associated with an owner, a team, and a topic originator and having a priority assigned thereto;

automatically ranking a portion of the communications by determining a combination of the priority, the urgency, and the importance associated with each communication in the portion, and associating the ranking with each communication in the portion; and

providing a summary of the communications in the portion and an indication of the ranking associated with each communication in the portion.

7. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, further comprising instructions for implementing creating the plurality of topics, including entering, responsive to a user, a description of the topic;

assigning, responsive to the user, the priority to the topic;

assigning, responsive to the user, an owner of the topic;

assigning a team to the topic; and

automatically assigning the user as the originator of the topic;

wherein the owner and the user are members of the team; and

automatically routing, responsive to the creating, the topic to the owner.

8. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, further comprising instructions for receiving a communication associated with the topic, responsive to creation of the communication.

9. The computer-readable medium of claim 6, further comprising instructions for searching the plurality of communications by topic, priority, urgency, importance, or ranking.

10. The computer-readable medium of claim 6,

wherein each topic is associated with a topic description;

wherein each communication is associated with a communication description, the communication description for the communication having less than a pre-determined limited character length;

wherein each communication includes an action indication whether the communication is for information or for action, and if for action, indicates an end date associated with the action;

wherein the instructions for providing the summary of the communications in the portion further include indicating for each communication in the portion;

the corresponding topic, the topic description associated with the corresponding topic, the communication description associated with the communication, the action indication, and if for action, indicates the end date associated with the action.

11. A computerized method of distributing, communicating, and/or reporting topics shared among users, comprising:

creating a plurality of topics including a topic, including assigning a priority to the topic, associating the topic with a team of users, and tasking the topic to an owner, the owner being one of the users of the team; and

producing a plurality of communications responsive to the topic, each of the communications being initiated responsive to a user of the team and being assigned, at least one of manually and semi-automatically responsive to the user, an urgency representative of a time for completion and an importance, the communication being automatically assigned the priority assigned to the topic,

wherein the priority is one of a plurality of pre-determined priorities, the urgency is one of a plurality of pre-determined urgencies, and the importance is one of a plurality of pre-determined importances.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising ranking the communication relative to other communications in the plurality of communications, responsive to the priority, urgency and importance.

13. The method of claim 12, further comprising reporting on the plurality of communications by the ranking, the report further being limited to communications responsive to at least one of owner, originator, team and topic.

14. The method of claim 12, wherein the ranking is represented in a display as particular colors.

15. The method of claim 12, wherein the ranking is represented by relative mathematical values.

16. The method of claim 11, further comprising searching the plurality of communications by priority, urgency, importance, and at least one of keyword, owner, and originator.

17. The method of claim 11, the priority, urgency, and importance each comprising high, medium and low values.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising associating an end date with at least one of the at least one topic and the at least one communication, wherein the urgency is further responsive to the end date.

19. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one communication includes a chain of custody indicative of originators and intervening recipients associated with the at least one communication.

20. The method of claim 11, further comprising

automatically routing, in the computer, the at least one topic to the owner, responsive to the creating of the at least one topic;

and

automatically routing, in the computer, the communication to the owner.

21. A computer system for managing communications related to status of a plurality of topics, comprising:

a topic unit, configured to facilitate creating a plurality of topics, including assigning a priority to the topics, the priority being one of a plurality of pre-determined priorities;

tasking, responsive to an originator, one of the topics to an owner;

assigning a topic description to the topic; and

associating the topic with a team including the originator and the owner;

a communication production unit, configured to facilitate producing a plurality of communications, including at least one communication, the at least one communication being initiated by a member of the team and associated with one of the topics;

producing the communication further including assigning the at least one communication one of a plurality of pre-determined urgencies reflecting a deadline and one of a plurality of pre-determined importances, the urgency and importance being responsive to the team member, automatically associating the at least one communication with the priority assigned to the topic, associating the at least one communication with a communication description, the communication description for the communication being limited to less than a pre-determined limited character length, associating the at least one communication with an action indication whether the at least one communication is for information or for action, and if for action, indicating an end date associated with the action; and

automatically routing the at least one communication to the owner.

a communication reception unit associated with a particular user, the particular user being a member of the team, configured to facilitate receiving the at least one communication associated with topics associated with the team;

a ranking unit, configured to facilitate ranking a portion of the communications by automatically calculating a value for each communication in the portion from an equally-weighted combination of the priority, the urgency, and the importance associated with each communication, the value indicating a rank of each communication in comparison to other communications; and

associating the rank with each communication in the portion; and

a report unit, configured to facilitate providing a report, responsive to a user, of communications for which the user is a team member of the associated topic, including an indication for each communication in the portion of;

the corresponding topic, the topic description associated with the corresponding topic, the communication description associated with the communication, the action indication, and if for action, the end date associated with the action;

wherein there are three pre-determined priorities, three pre-determined urgencies, and three pre-determined importances.