METHOD, SYSTEM AND PROGRAM PRODUCT FOR CONDITIONALLY CONTROLLING CHANGES TO KEY DATA FIELDS IN A PROJECT DATABASE

• US 20080027775A1
• Filed: 07/28/2006
• Published: 01/31/2008
• Est. Priority Date: 07/28/2006
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Kyndryl Incorporated (Kyndryl Holdings, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Taylor, Philip J., Ellis, Tanya J., Hicks, Scott D., Martin, James A., Garrett, Andrew J.
• Granted Patent: US 9,805,318 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 705/8
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06 Resources, workflows, human or project management; Enterprise or organisation planning; Enterprise or organisation modelling
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063 Operations research, analysis or management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06316 Sequencing of tasks or work
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/06375 Prediction of business process outcome or impact based on a proposed change
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/0639 Performance analysis of employees; Performance analysis of enterprise or organisation operations

Abstract

A method, system and program product for performing one or more actions in response to a change made to a key data field in a project management application for managing a project. The method includes establishing one or more metrics to be monitored for a project, defining one or more actions for at least one key data field of a plurality of key data fields in the project management application, the one or more actions being defined in accordance with a level of control to be exercised and being triggered by one or more pre-specified conditions associated with the one or more metrics monitored for the project. The method further includes automatically performing at least one action of the one or more actions in response to a relative impact to the project caused by a change made to the at least one key data field.

Claims

1. A method of performing one or more actions in response to a change made to a key data field in a project management application, said method comprising the steps of:

defining one or more actions for at least one key data field of a plurality of key data fields in a project management application for managing a project, said one or more actions being defined in accordance with a level of control to be exercised and being triggered by one or more pre-specified conditions associated with one or more project progression metrics monitored for said project; and

performing at least one action of said one or more actions in response to a relative impact to said project caused by a change made to said at least one key data field.

2. The method according to claim 1, further comprising the step of:

defining said plurality of key data fields in said project management application for said project.

3. The method according to claim 2, further comprising the steps of:

establishing said one or more project progression metrics to be monitored, each of said one or more project progression metrics having said one or more pre-specified conditions, such that said change made to said at least one key data field that meets a pre-specified condition of said one or more pre-specified conditions triggers performance of said at least one action; and

determining one or more levels of control for said at least one key data field, wherein said level of control to be exercised is dictated by said pre-specified condition met for said one or more project progression metrics monitored.

4. The method according to claim 3, further comprising the steps of:

defining one or more activities for said project; and

establishing a schedule for said one or more activities for said project.

5. The method according to claim 4, wherein said one or more levels of control comprise at least one of:

minimal control, intermediate control, and high control.

6. The method according to claim 5, wherein said one or more project progression metrics comprise at least one of:

time period for said project, percent of project budget expended for said project, percent of work completed for said project and specific milestones surpassed for said project.

7. The method according to claim 6, wherein said one or more actions comprise at least one of:

logging said change to said at least one key data field, preventing said change to said at least one key data field from being finalized based upon a field value of said at least one key data field, preventing said change to said at least one key data field from being finalized based upon a field value of another data field in said project management application, preventing said change to said at least one key data field, sending notification of said change to said at least one key data field to a distribution list of users, restricting access to change said at least one key data field to a list of approved users, requiring approval from one or more users prior to finalizing said change to said at least one key data field, determining an additional project cost to implement said change to said at least one key data field, sending an invoice for said additional project cost to a customer, and canceling one or more activities for said project.

8. A system for conditionally controlling a change made to a key data field in a project management application, comprising:

a project management application running on at least one server of a plurality of servers coupled to a computer network, said project management application being configured to manage a project, said project management application including a conditional controls component configured to perform at least one pre-specified action in response to a change made to a key data field in said project management application, said conditional controls component being configured to monitor one or more metrics pertaining to progress of said project, each of said one or more metrics having one or more pre-specified conditions, each of said one or more pre-specified conditions having an associated level of control and one or more pre-specified actions to be taken when a pre-specified condition is met, such that an increasing level of control is exercised when performing said at least one pre-specified action in response to said change made to said key data field as said project progresses.

9. The system according to claim 8, wherein said one or more metrics comprise at least one of:

time period for said project, percent of project budget expended for said project, percent of work completed for said project and specific milestones surpassed for said project.

10. The system according to claim 9, wherein said associated level of control comprises at least one of:

minimal control, intermediate control, and high control.

11. The system according to claim 10, wherein said at least one pre-specified action comprises at least one of:

logging said change to said key data field, preventing said change to said key data field from being finalized based upon a field value of said key data field, preventing said change to said key data field from being finalized based upon a field value of another data field in said project management application, preventing said change to said key data field, sending notification of said change to a distribution list of users, restricting access to change said key data field to a list of approved users, requiring approval from one or more users prior to finalizing said change, determining an additional project cost to implement said change, sending an invoice for said additional project costs to a customer, and canceling one or more activities for said project.

12. A computer program product for implementing one or more actions in response to a change made to a key data field in a project management application for a project, said computer program product comprising:

a computer readable medium;

first program instructions to define one or more actions to be performed for a key data field of a plurality of key data fields, each of said one or more actions corresponding to a level of control of a plurality of levels of control to be exercised in response to a change made to said key data field of said plurality of key data fields;

second program instructions to establish one or more metrics to be monitored for said project, each of said one or more metrics having one or more pre-specified conditions, such that said change made to said key data field that meets a pre-specified condition triggers implementation of said one or more actions;

third program instructions to implement at least one action of said one or more actions defined based on said pre-specified condition that is met and corresponding to said level of control to be exercised in response to said change made to said key data field; and

wherein said first, second and third program instructions are stored on said computer readable medium.

13. The computer program product according to claim 12, wherein said first program instructions include instructions to define a plurality of key data fields in a project management application for managing a project.

14. The computer program product according to claim 13, wherein said second program instructions include instructions to monitor whether or not said one or more pre-specified conditions associated with said one or more metrics have been met in order to trigger performance of said at least one action in response to said change made to said key data field.

15. The computer program product according to claim 14, wherein said level of control to be exercised is dictated by said pre-specified condition met for said one or more metrics monitored.

16. The computer program product according to claim 15, wherein said one or more levels of control comprise at least one of:

minimal control, intermediate control, and high control.

17. The computer program product according to claim 16, wherein said one or more metrics comprise at least one of:

time period for said project, percent of project budget expended for said project, percent of work completed for said project and specific milestones surpassed for said project.

18. The computer program product according to claim 17, wherein said one or more actions comprise at least one of:

logging said change to said data field, preventing said change to said data field from being finalized based upon a field value of said data field, preventing said change to said data field from being finalized based upon a field value of another data field in said project management application, preventing said change to said at least one key data field, sending notification of said change to a distribution list of users, restricting access to change said data field to a list of approved users, requiring approval from one or more users prior to finalizing said change, determining an additional project cost to implement said change, sending an invoice for said additional project costs to a customer, and canceling one or more activities for said project.

19. A process for deploying computing infrastructure comprising integrating computer-readable code into a computing system, wherein said code in combination with said computing system is capable of performing one or more actions in response to a change made to a key data field in a project management application, said process comprising:

establishing one or more metrics to be monitored for a project, each of said one or more metrics having one or more pre-specified conditions that when met trigger performance of one or more actions;

identifying one or more levels of control to be exercised for a key data field of a plurality of key data fields based on a relative impact to said project caused by a change made to said key data field;

establishing said one or more actions to be performed in response to said change made to said key data field of said plurality of key data fields; and

performing at least one action of said one or more actions corresponding to a level of control of said one or more levels of control to be exercised and triggered by at least one pre-specified condition of said one or more pre-specified conditions that is met, wherein said at least one action is performed in response to said change made to said key data field.

20. The process according to claim 19, further comprising the steps of:

defining said plurality of key data fields in a project management application for managing said project.

21. The process according to claim 20, further comprising the steps of:

recording said change made to said key data field; and

sending communication regarding said at least one action of said one or more actions performed.

22. The process according to claim 21, wherein said one or more levels of control comprise at least one of:

minimal control, intermediate control, and high control.

23. The process according to claim 22, wherein said one or more metrics comprise at least one of:

time period for said project, percent of project budget expended for said project, percent of work completed for said project and specific milestones surpassed for said project.

24. The process according to claim 23, wherein said one or more actions comprise at least one of:

logging said change to said data field, preventing said change to said data field from being finalized based upon a field value of said data field, preventing said change to said data field from being finalized based upon a field value of another data field in said project management application, preventing said change to said at least one key data field, sending notification of said change to a distribution list of users, restricting access to change said data field to a list of approved users, requiring approval from one or more users prior to finalizing said change, determining an additional project cost to implement said change, sending an invoice for said additional project costs to a customer, and canceling one or more activities for said project.