SYSTEM AND METHOD FOR USING DEMOGRAPHIC ORGANIZATION AND SEGMENTATION TO MANAGE LARGE SCALE PROJECTS

• US 20070294275A1
• Filed: 08/29/2007
• Published: 12/20/2007
• Est. Priority Date: 09/14/2004
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Rauch, Diane, Martin, James, Hicks, Scott, DelGaudio, Carol
• Granted Patent: US 8,055,691 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/10 Office automation; Time management

Abstract

A method and system is provided to demographically represent and implement one or more projects associated with an entity such as a corporation in a database so that the views into the database reflect a defined hierarchy of the demographics of the project or entity. The views may be created to reflect various aspects such as technological components, physical attributes of the entity, processes, or other attributes. The processes reflected by the views may also provide action based data elements for supporting the activities necessary to accomplish the processes over time. The project and associate views may also be organized by language or geographic requirements. In use, the invention may provide for management and control for large scale projects such as a migration from one organizational state to another.

Claims

1. A method to segment a migration project, comprising:

arranging data views demographically to reflect one or more characteristics of an entity;

instantiating the data views; and

accessing the data views to add, modify or view demographically arranged data reflective of one or more characteristics of the entity to manage the migration project by managing the demographically arranged data to effect a change in the one more characteristics of the entity.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the data views are arranged to reflect at least any one of the entity'"'"'s organizational structure, physical components, technical components, timetable, geography, one or more processes, and language.

3. The method of claim 2, wherein the data views are arranged to include the one or more processes and include actions associated with the one or more processes.

4. The method of claim 1, further comprising defining a hierarchy of the data views and defining a list of the data views.

5. The method of claim 4, for each data view defined in the list, defining and implementing a view selection criterion, columns, sort orders, and view actions for any processes supported by the each data view.

6. The method of claim 1, further comprising creating one or more database instances of the data views.

7. The method of claim 6, wherein the one or more database instances are two or more database instances identical in design but differing in configuration information and actual data residing therein based on the characteristics.

8. The method of claim 6, wherein the two or more database instances are geographically independent.

9. The method of claim 6, wherein the creating step includes implementing forms, views, actions and agents.

10. The method of claim 1, wherein the entity is a corporation or an organization.

11. A method for segmenting an enterprise activity, comprising:

defining at least one process associated with a migration project;

defining a view hierarchy and list of views reflective of the at least one process; and

creating one or more database instances implementing the view hierarchy to manage data associated with implementation of the at least one process associated with the migration project.

12. The method of claim 11, further comprising defining criteria for segmenting data associated with the project.

13. The method of claim 12, wherein the criteria for segmenting is by at least any one of language, geography, organization, phase of the migration project, and project timetable.

14. The method of claim 11, further comprising defining and implementing actions associated with the at least one process.

15. The method of claim 11, further comprising defining devices and device related information managed by the migration project.

16. The method of claim 11, comprising defining locations to be supported by the migration project and reflecting the locations in the view hierarchy.

17. The method of claim 11, wherein the at least one process includes at least any one of a project management process, an administrative process, a migration process, a labor recording process, an import/export process, a reporting process and a billing process.

18. The method of claim 11, further comprising defining and implementing for each view in the list of views:

a view selection criteria;

view columns and sort orders; and

view actions based on the at least one process.