Methodology infrastructure and delivery vehicle

• US 20060294157A1
• Filed: 08/29/2006
• Published: 12/28/2006
• Est. Priority Date: 02/14/2003
• Status: Abandoned Application

• Current Assignee: Accenture Global Services Limited (Accenture PLC)
• Original Assignee: Accenture Global Services GmbH (Accenture PLC)
• Inventors: Kumpitsch, Richard C., Law, Barry K., Moore, Hollis H., Cosillo, Edy S., Fisher, Christopher M.
• Application Number:
  US11/511,786
• Publication Number:
  US 20060294157A1
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 16/958 Organisation or management of web site content, e.g. publishing, maintaining pages or automatic linking

Abstract

An infrastructure to develop, store, maintain and deliver methodology content to end users includes a database of metadata containing definitions of explicit and implicit relationships between methodology objects representative of published documents. The infrastructure includes an integrated suite of tools including a methodology development tool, multiple user interfaces including a methodology finder and a methodology browser, and an estimating tool that integrates the methodology content into the project planning process.

Claims

1. A method for providing multiple user-interface access to a methodology comprising:

a) publishing data describing a standardized set of tasks for the methodology in a methodology standards knowledge management repository;

b) storing standardized project information for the methodology containing hypertext link definitions between the published data;

c) providing a first browser interface for locating a relevant methodology, the first browser interface comprising a text-matching search engine input field, navigators, and an active window for selectively displaying search results or selected documents;

d) providing a second browser interface for locating relevant documents containing methodology tasks, the second browser interface for browsing temporally within one methodology, the interface comprising a text-matching search engine input field, navigators, and an active window selectively for displaying search results, hierarchical topical results or selected documents;

e) presenting selected documents, said selected documents containing links in accordance with said hypertext link definitions to associated published data describing other tasks, inputs and deliverables;

f) downloading the standardized project information from the knowledge repository related to the selected document; and

g) generating a project estimate based on a project scope, the project scope including project estimating parameters and selected tasks, the project estimate having displayable hypertext links to the in-scope selected tasks.

2. The method for providing multiple user-interface access to a methodology according to claim 1 further comprising exporting the project estimate into a project management program to generate a report comprising hypertext links to the data describing the in-scope selected tasks for the methodology.

3. The method for providing multiple user-interface access to a methodology according to claim 1, wherein the data further describes a standardized set of deliverables for the methodology and the step of generating a project estimate further comprises selecting deliverables listed in the standardized project information to define contents to be stored in a deliverables repository.

4. The method for providing multiple user-interface access to a methodology according to claim 1, further comprising generating a list of tasks within the project scope based on the generated project estimate, the list having hypertext links to the standardized set of tasks for the methodology.

5. The method for providing multiple user-interface access to a methodology according to claim 1 further comprising storing representations of the links to the associated data from a relational database reflective of a metadata object model comprising explicit and implicit hierarchical relationships between the linked data.

6. The method for providing multiple user-interface access to a methodology according to claim 1 further comprising generating work planning documents according to roles for task execution and task hierarchy.

7. The method for providing multiple user-interface access to a methodology according to claim 1 further comprising providing a duplicate set of published data for use in a project-specific methodology website.

8. The method for providing multiple user-interface access to a methodology according to claim 7, where the displayable hypertext links of the project scope reference the project-specific methodology website.

9. The method for providing multiple user-interface access to a methodology according to claim 1, where the project estimating parameters include estimating factors and complexity values for each in-scope selected task.

10. A system for developing, storing, maintaining and delivering methodology content to an end user, the system comprising:

a) a database for storing the methodology content and reflective of a metadata model containing definitions of explicit and implicit relationships between elements defined in the methodology content;

b) a publishing tool for populating fields in presentation templates to create browser viewable documents of the methodology content having links between the documents in accordance with the explicit and implicit relationships;

c) a first user interface for accessing multiple methodologies defined in the methodology content and for accessing additional related documents;

d) a second user interface for displaying browser viewable documents of the methodology content of a single selected methodology; and

e) an estimating tool for integrating the methodology content into a project estimate and work planning documents, the estimating tool generating hypertext links in the project estimate and work planning documents to the browser viewable documents of the methodology content.

11. The system for developing, storing, maintaining and delivering methodology content to an end user according to claim 10 further comprising a downloading tool for downloading the standardized project information from the knowledge repository related to the selected document.

12. The system for developing, storing, maintaining and delivering methodology content to an end user according to claim 10 further comprising a usage reporting tool operative to track the browser viewable documents displayed via the second user interface.

13. The system for developing, storing, maintaining and delivering methodology content to an end user according to claim 12, where the usage reporting tool is further operative to track usage demographic information.

14. The system for developing, storing, maintaining and delivering methodology content to an end user according to claim 10 further comprising a development environment for automatically determining the implicit relationships definitions in accordance with the explicit relationship definitions.

15. The system for developing, storing, maintaining and delivering methodology content to an end user according to claim 10 further comprising a notification tool operative to notify registered users when at least one of the browser viewable document is updated.

16. The system for developing, storing, maintaining and delivering methodology content to an end user according to claim 10 further comprising a search tool operative to perform keyword searches of the database.

17. A method for providing customized methodology content for use in a project repository, the method comprising:

a) providing access to a plurality of deliverable files in a deliverables library;

b) retrieving standardized project information including a list of deliverables;

c) defining a project scope by selecting deliverables from the standardized project information;

d) generating a data file containing references to the deliverables library for each selected deliverable; and

e) providing an installation file executable to access the data file and to install the selected deliverables in the project repository.

18. The method of claim 17, further comprising:

f) storing a plurality of content files each having information related to at least one selected deliverable, wherein at least one of the plurality of content files includes a first code segment for generating a hypertext link, the generated hypertext link including a code segment representative of a command associated with the project repository, the command being selected from the group consisting of creating a new document in the project repository, opening an existing document in the project repository, opening a sample document in the project repository, and opening a project-specific sample document in the project repository.

19. The method of claim 18 further comprising:

g) providing a first integration script including at least one display flag for each selected deliverable;

where the at least one of the plurality of content files further includes a second code segment for accessing the first integration script and for generating the hypertext link in accordance with the at least one display flag.

20. The method of claim 19 further comprising:

h) providing a second integration script including mapping data that defines a physical location in the project repository for each selected deliverable;

wherein the at least one of the plurality of content files further includes a third code segment for accessing the second integration script and for generating the hypertext link in accordance with the mapping data.