Method and System for Dynamic Project Management and Capacity Management and capacity management

• US 20100076803A1
• Filed: 09/23/2008
• Published: 03/25/2010
• Est. Priority Date: 09/23/2008
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Original Assignee: AT&T Intellectual Property I LP (AT&T, Inc.)
• Inventors: Williams, Kenneth, Flemming, Wonhee, Ziemann, Robert, Deo, Christopher, Chester, Tina
• Granted Patent: US 8,370,192 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 10/06311 Scheduling, planning or task assignment for a person or group
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 10/063114 Status monitoring or status determination for a person or group

Abstract

Described herein are systems and methods for dynamic project management and capacity management. Specifically, the systems and method include a management tool for performing project management, capacity management, and time and cost creation across systems and departments for the lowest levels of data. The management tool include a computer readable storage medium including a set of instructions that are executable by a processor, the set of instructions being operable to store projected time information and projected cost information for a project, store actual time information and actual cost information for the project, and display a correlation between i) the projected time information and actual time information, and ii) the projected cost information and the actual cost information.

Claims

1. A computer readable storage medium including a set of instructions that are executable by a processor, the set of instructions being operable to:

store projected time information and projected cost information for a project;

store actual time information and actual cost information for the project; and

display a correlation between i) the projected time information and actual time information, and ii) the projected cost information and the actual cost information.

2. The set of instructions of claim 1, further operable to:

store available time for a plurality of employees assigned to the project, the available time being stored based on a predetermined time interval; and

display a total available time for all the employees in the predetermined time interval.

3. The set of instructions of claim 2, wherein the available time for each employee is one of committed time to a task of the project and uncommitted time, the displaying of the total available time including a display of the committed time and the uncommitted time.

4. The set of instructions of claim 2, wherein the predetermined time interval is one of weekly, monthly, quarterly and yearly.

5. The set of instructions of claim 1, further operable to:

store available time for a plurality of employees assigned to the project,

store job functions for the plurality of employees; and

display a total available time for each of the job functions.

6. The set of instructions of claim 5, further operable to:

assign one of the employees to a task/activity of the project based on the stored available time and at least one of the job functions.

7. The set of instructions of claim 5, further operable to:

determine a capacity for staffing the project based on one of the stored available time and at least of the job functions.

8. The set of instructions of claim 1, further operable to:

store a plurality of tasks/activities for the project, wherein the displaying is based on the projected time information, the projected cost information, the actual time information and the actual cost information for each task/activity.

9. The set of instructions of claim 8, wherein the displaying is one of limited to one of the tasks/activities, limited to a subset of the tasks/activities and for all of the tasks/activities.

10. The set of instructions of claim 8, further operable to:

calculate a completion percentage of each task/activity based on the projected time information and the actual time information; and

display the completion percentage for each task/activity.

11. The set of instructions of claim 10, wherein the calculating is further based on the projected cost information and the actual cost information.

12. The set of instructions of claim 1, further operable to:

store a plurality of tasks for the project, each task including a projected completion date;

store an actual completion date for at least some of the tasks;

determine, for each task that includes an actual completion date, whether the task was completed one of early, on-time and late based on a comparison between the projected completion date of the task and the actual completion date;

display the determined one of early, on-time and late for each task.

13. The set of instructions of claim 12, further operable to:

display that each of the tasks that does not include an actual completion date is in progress.

14. The set of instructions of claim 1, further operable to:

receive one of the projected time information, the projected cost information, the actual time information and the actual cost information from a user via a user input display.

15. The set of instructions of claim 14, further operable to:

store a plurality of authorized users, each user including one or more defined roles for the project; and

limit input access to the user input display based on the one or more defined role of the user.

16. The set of instructions of claim 1, wherein a user selects a type of the correlation to be displayed.

17. The set of instructions of claim 1, further operable to:

store additional information for the project; and

display the additional information.

18. The set of instructions of claim 17, wherein the additional information includes one of a project number, project personnel, a project benefit metric, a project benefit description, a project name, a project meeting schedule, a project meeting agenda, and project meeting notes.

19. The set of instructions of claim 1, further operable to:

generate alerts based on the correlation; and

send the alerts to authorized users.

20. The set of instructions of claim 1, further operable to:

store pre-sales information for the project, the pre-sales information including an identification of one of a request for proposal and at least one opportunity; and

display the pre-sales information.

21. A management tool, comprising:

a time/cost reporting component storing projected time information and projected cost information for a project, storing actual time information and actual cost information for the project, and reporting a correlation between i) the projected time information and actual time information, and ii) the projected cost information and the actual cost information;

a capacity assessment component storing available time for a plurality of employees assigned to the project, storing job functions for the plurality of employees, and determining a capacity for staffing the project based on one of the stored available time and at least of the job functions;

a pre-sales tracking component storing pre-sales information for the project, the pre-sales information including an identification of one of a request for proposal and at least one opportunity and tracking the pre-sales information; and

a dashboard component storing a plurality of tasks for the project, wherein the reporting is based on the projected time information, the projected cost information, the actual time information and the actual cost information for each task, calculating a completion percentage of each task based on the projected time information and the actual time information, and displaying the completion percentage for each task.