EP1606752A2

EP1606752A2 - Method and system for project and competence management

Info

Publication number: EP1606752A2
Application number: EP04723470A
Authority: EP
Inventors: Fernand Jozef Vandamme
Original assignee: Het Babbage Instituut voor Kennis en Informatie Technologie Vereniging zonder Winstoogmerk
Current assignee: Het Babbage Instituut voor Kennis en Informatie Technologie Vereniging zonder Winstoogmerk
Priority date: 2003-03-26
Filing date: 2004-03-26
Publication date: 2005-12-21
Also published as: WO2004086263A2; WO2004086263A8; BE1015444A3

Abstract

Method for the follow-up of a project management, characterized in that it at least consists of inputting data in an electronic data file in different phases of the project, related to the different phases concerned, and of assessing the project as a function of the changes in said data file.

Description

Method and system for the follow-up of a project management, competence management or the like.

The present invention concerns a method and a system for the follow-up, in particular the internal or external follow-up, of a project management, competence management or the like. By a project is also meant a project development, process or the like.

It is known that when projects are realised or competences are developed, especially in the case of large projects to which different groups or persons provide their co- operation, it may occur that the realisation of such a project is less effective due to a lack of co-ordination. Thus, for example, certain useful information of a group or a person may not arrive at certain other groups or persons to whom this information is useful . It may also occur that the project develops in an unwanted manner in varying directions among the different groups or persons, without the groups or persons concerned being aware of it in time.

It is also known that data, originating from documents, can be inputted in a data file, on the basis of which what is called a thesaurus can be built up, whereby this thesaurus makes it possible to retrace certain documents. To this end, different systems have already been developed. Examples for building up such a thesaurus, for indexing documents and the like, are known among others from EP 0,952,535, WO 95/14973, WO 96/32686, US 5,007,019 and US 5,555,408. Until now, such systems have been exclusively applied for the classification and retracing of documents. The present invention aims a method for the follow-up of a project management, which method helps to optimize the management. In particular, it aims a method whereby, among others, the risk of the above-mentioned unwanted developments occurring in a project can be discovered in good time, and whereby these developments can be adjusted.

The present invention also aims a method and a system whereby said follow-up can be done in a technical manner by making use of electronic data processing.

To this end, the present invention first of all concerns a method for the follow-up of a project management, characterised in that it at least consists of inputting data in an electronic data file in different phases of the project, related to the different phases concerned, and of assessing the project, preferably in an electronic manner, as a function of the changes in said data file.

For the database, use will preferably be made of a system based on a thesaurus .

It is clear that, by inputting data originating from different phases of a project, the obtained data file, and in particular the content and the classification generated on the basis thereof, the arrangement and the like of the thesaurus, will change constantly, and that thanks to the present invention, by assessing the changes, also the project management and project development can be assessed. Naturally, such an assessment can be done in different manners, either according to techniques of the invention which will be described hereafter, or according to other techniques known as such by professionals. The selection of the phases with relation to which data can be inputted in the data file may vary as a function of the applications and/or specific objectives. However, use will preferably be made of data which are related to vital phases of the project development, for example which are related to the starting phase, the middle phase and the final phase. The use of phases according to the invention does not necessarily imply that there must be a clear separation between these phases. For it is also possible to input all sorts of documents during the project management in an almost continuous manner, and to classify them as a function of their production time, such that in this manner, it becomes also possible to assess the project as a function of the time and the phase.

It is clear that, by the extent or restricted character of the obtained database, and in particular of the thesaurus built on the basis thereof, it is possible to obtain a clear view of the qualitative and quantitative qualities of the project management, in other words of the development of a project or competence.

Of course, the invention can be applied to follow up the development of a project while this project is being carried out, or to follow up the development of a competence, in order to possibly adjust things, as well as to assess a project at the end, either or not externally, in order to determine the efficiency with which said project is carried out, whereby the obtained results can be used to improve the implementation of later projects.

For the data to be inputted, use will preferably be at least made of documents which are produced during the project. Indeed, such documents are a major source of information. Examples of types of documents that can be used are for example: reports concerning the object of the project; reports and/or accounts formulated during the project; - communications between different parties or co-workers of the project; - reports and/or communications in the form of e-mails.

According to the invention, for the input of data, use can also be made of drawings, pictures, photos, audio and/or video material or the like, either or not combined with the aforesaid data which have been gathered from the above- mentioned documents .

Moreover, for the input of data, use can also be made of data which were raised or recorded during meetings and/or assessments .

The method according to the invention can be used for the assessment of a project as a whole, but it can also be used to compare data which were inputted by different parties, in order to verify in what sense the work, carried out by these parties, evolves in relation to each other. The latter application allows to follow up whether different parties taking part in a project are still working on the same wavelength and, as a consequence, should it appear that the activities of different parties are growing entirely apart, which is detrimental to the outcome of the project, it is still possible to take action in time. The method can possibly also be applied within the frame of a negotiation framework.

Further, the method according to the invention can also be characterised i that, for the data file, use is made of a system based on a thesaurus or of terminology lists, in both cases completed with collections of relevant language patterns and expressions, whereby this data file comprises statistic, time-independent data and lists on the one hand, which are drawn up at the beginning of the project, as well as dynamic, time-independent data and lists which are changed and completed during the course of the project on the other hand.

An electronic assessment is preferably made, whereby use is at least made of one or several of the following possibilities :

- an assessment by following up the evolution of the enlargement of the data file, in particular the enlargement of the lexicon or the increase of certain documents, headwords and concepts;

- a hierarchic assessment;

- a relational and/or conditional assessment.

In the case of an assessment on the basis of the enlargement of the data file, it will be verified statistically in the course of the project management in what direction the project is developing, by means of statistical information regarding the number of documents produced, headwords, concepts and the like which have been indexed .

It is clear that techniques for building up a data file, in particular a thesaurus, can be used hereby, whereby an automatic distinction is made between terms, roots, headwords and possibly concepts, and whereby they are automatically classified.

In the case of a hierarchic assessment, a classification is made according to broader and more restricted terms. Thus, for example, the word 'metal' is a broader term in relation to the words 'iron' and 'silver'.

It is also important that not only a classification is made, but that also the number of broader terms in relation to the more restricted or lower terms is taken into account. It is also useful, according to the invention, to take the number of hierarchic levels into account.

In the case of a relational and/or conditional assessment, relational and/or conditional connections between the expressions applied in certain documents are verified, and possibly, on the basis of the thus obtained results, it is also possible to find connections between different documents.

According to a special aspect of the present invention, when inputting data and/or assessing inputted data, the style of these data is taken into account. For certain documents, for example informative e-mails between co- workers of the project, may have a less formal style than for example documents such as official reports published in the course of the project. By taking this into account according to the invention, the data file, in particular the thesaurus, can be optimised. Data originating from documents with a less formal style can be considered as having less consequence, whereas data originating from more formal documents can be considered as having more consequence .

According to a practical aspect of the invention, use is made of intelligent agents for the automatic classification of documents in the data file, in particular with the help of the thesaurus. These are data processing means allowing for an automatic or semi-automatic classification. Preferably, use is hereby made of specialised modules for the autonomous analysis of the project characteristics, based on project documentation and on the aforesaid data file, which modules remain active in the used computer system and automatically carry out the necessary analyses at certain points in time, for example daily, and/or when new project documents are inputted in the applied project follow-up system and/or at the request of the user.

The structure of such a classification can be based on different techniques, whereby a top-down as well as a bottom-up approach can be followed. By a top-down approach is hereby meant that certain classifications are first established by the user, after which the data to be inputted, in particular the documents to be inputted, are automatically ordered according to this classification. By a bottom-up approach is meant that data, in particular documents, are inputted, and on the basis of the information of the data from these documents is automatically generated a classification, and on the basis of this classification, the documents concerned are clustered.

According to a practical embodiment, the above-mentioned thesaurus will be developed by successively applying the following steps:

- selecting training examples, i.e. a set of representative documents which are relevant for the thesaurus to be generated;

- performing a training, in particular by extracting terms, building up the thesaurus and collecting relevant language patterns;

- performing an assessment by means of a test on the basis of the inputted documents; - repeating the aforesaid three steps several times in order to refine the thesaurus and the pattern collection.

According to a major preferred aspect of the invention, when inputting data in the aforesaid data file, and in particular when thereby building up a thesaurus, at least a part of the inputted data will be considered as having a certain consequence or importance as a function of the project phase. Thus, for example, in the initial or concept phase of the project, a smaller factor of consequence can be ascribed to terms from the thesaurus which have been obtained via data regarding a prototype, whereas a larger factor of consequence can be ascribed to these terms during the development phase and the pre- exploitation phase of the project. A very large factor of consequence can for example also be given to terms from the thesaurus which have been obtained via data derived from information regarding research and analyses during the development phase, and as soon as the project enters the development phase, they may possibly no longer have any consequence whatsoever.

It is clear that ascribing different factors of consequence to certain expressions, terms, connections and the like can be done in different ways, and must not necessarily be related to certain phases of the project; this can also be done, as mentioned above, as a function of the formal or informal character of certain data, or also as a function of other useful criteria.

According to another special characteristic, the method is characterised in that a continuous, thesaurus-based task analysis is applied when carrying out the project, whereby the above-mentioned data files are used in this method in order to draw the conclusions, by means of an automated document analysis with reference to the following project characteristics :

- which project tasks are being implemented and with what intensity?

- Which project tasks are going well and which project tasks hold a risk of delay?

- Which project tasks diverge?

According to another special aspect of the invention, use is also made of the analysis of story-based visual content, at least when data concerning the project are available which allow this, and when it is expected that this may also contribute to an improved automatic assessment of the project. By story-based visual content is meant information containing images, which images also represent a certain story or certain changes as a function of time. Thus, for example, they may be images in the form of comic strips, images from films, graphic representations of different project phases, a film of a meeting or the like.

The analysis can hereby be made automatically as well as semi-automatically . By automatically is meant that the images concerned are scanned and automatically processed into useful information. By semi-automatically is meant that, as a function of certain images, data are inputted in the system for realising the invention by an operator.

The analysis is preferably carried out as a function of the scenario which is represented by the images. To this end, the information of the scenario can be divided in basic building blocks, for example 'setting' (time and place), 'actors' and 'action' . By registering and storing data regarding these basic building stones in the data file as a function of the development of the scenario, it is possible to make different analyses. These building stones are also linked to a thesaurus, such that the semantics of the image data can be automatically determined. The link to the thesaurus allows for language-based queries on image material, as well as for a more sophisticated interpretation of series of images, making use of thesaurus extensions up to metalevels of the scenarios.

Further, an optimisation of the query processing can be provided for, as will be explained hereafter.

According to a known implementation of the index server, the keyword/concept query 'get documents' is carried out in two steps: in the first step, the docids (document identifications) ^' are selected which are coupled to the query term, in the second step, for every docid found in step 1, the keywords and the concepts are selected.

The processing of this query, especially of step 2, may be slowed down if the list of the docids found in step 1 is large .

In order to obtain an improved performance, the invention suggests two options for the optimisation of the index data and database structure:

- completion of the database with additional tables;

- use of the structured storage.

As far as the first option is concerned, it should be noted that a customary index implementation is based on relational tables . These tables each time comprise document identification numbers (DOCIDS) , the index terms and their absolute frequency. The table layout of the keyword index is as follows: DOCID KT F

000001 Keywordl 100

000001 eyword2 99

000001 eyword3 97

A similar layout can be used for concepts and for a full- text index.

With the new method according to the present invention, an additional data cluster is used, apart from the already existing tables, such that every docid is coupled directly to its lists of keywords, of concepts and of full-text terms .

The structure of the new index table is then for example: DOCID KT LIST

000001 keyword 1 (100) ; keyword 2 (99) ;...

000002 keyword 1 (98) ; keyword 2 (78) ;...

Thus, in the second step, there is no additional filtering on the individual word level. When filtering the DOCIDS, the lists are taken directly from the same record.

According to the second option, as mentioned above, use is made of a structured storage.

The structured storage is a method which is applied as persistent data storage in COM-based software. One of the characteristics of the structured storage is its hierarchical layout, consisting of folders and data. Via an API in C++ it is possible to create a root folder with subfolders and data streams .

In this manner can be made a persistent tree structure on the hard disk in a single binary file, whereby the data search can be optimised. The data can be stored directly as binary streams: this makes it possible to store a large amount of multimedia data in different formats in a single persistent file. When searching/retracing data, the tree can be used. In this manner, the access time to the data can be optimised.

According to a preferred and special aspect of the invention, the content of the data file, in particular of the thesaurus, is automatically managed in a dynamic manner. By this is meant that the used lexicon is automatically assessed in order to allow for a correct classification and/or that the lexicon available in the thesaurus is automatically reassessed.

By automatic assessment should be understood for example that, when a specific word has different meanings in different domains, this word will be categorized in the right domain as a function of possible other words in the document concerned. Thus, for example, the word 'program' has another meaning in the domain 'television channels' than in the domain 'software' . Thus, for example, also the word 'process' has another meaning in the domain 'chemistry' than in the domain 'software development' .

By automatic reassessment of the lexicon should be understood that certain technical terms can change in the course of time, or that new technical terms are used instead of others. It is clear that this can also be determined automatically.

In this manner, it is possible to maintain an up-to-date lexicon and data file according to the invention. The invention can be applied in a similar manner to follow up a competence management or development .

It is clear that the invention also concerns systems for realising the above-described method, which consist of electronic means to this end, including algorithms, by means of which the above-described method can be implemented .

The invention is by no means limited to the above-described examples; on the contrary, such a method and such a system can be realised according to several variants while still remaining within the scope of the invention.

Claims

Claims .

1. Method for the follow-up of a project management, characterised in that it at least consists of inputting data in an electronic data file in different phases of the project, related to the different phases concerned, and of assessing the project as a function of the changes in said data file.

2. Method according to claim 1, characterised in that, for the data to be inputted, use is at least made of documents which are produced during the project.

3. Method according to claim 2, characterised in that at least one or several of the following types of documents are used: reports concerning the object of the project; - reports and/or accounts formulated during the project; - communications between different parties or co-workers of the project; reports and/or communications in the form of e-mails.

4. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that for the input of data, use is at least made of drawings, pictures, photos, audio and/or video material or the like.

5. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that for the input of data, use can at least be made of data which were raised or recorded during meetings and/or assessments.

6. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that it is at least used for the assessment of a project as a whole.

7. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that it is at least used to compare data inputted by different parties, in order to verify in what direction both parties are evolving in relation to each other, possibly within a negotiation framework.

8. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that, for the data file, use is made of a system based on a thesaurus .

9. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that, for the data file, use is made of a system based on a thesaurus or of terminology lists, in both cases completed with collections of relevant language patterns and expressions, whereby this data file comprises statistic, time-independent data and lists on the one hand, which are drawn up at the beginning of the project, as well as dynamic, time-independent data and lists which are changed and completed during the course of the project on the other hand.

10. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that an electronic assessment is carried out, whereby use is at least made of one or several of the following possibilities: - an assessment by following up the evolution of the enlargement of the data file, in particular the enlargement of the lexicon or the increase of certain documents, headwords and concepts ; - a hierarchic assessment; - a relational and/or conditional assessment. - l o ¬

11. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that, when inputting data and/or assessing inputted data, the style of these data is taken into account .

12. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that use is made of Intelligent agents for the automatic classification of documents.

13. Method according to claim 12, characterized in that specialised modules are used for the autonomous analysis of the project characteristics, based on project documentation and on the aforesaid database, which modules remain active in the used computer system and automatically carry out the necessary analyses at certain points in time, for example daily, and/or when new project documents are inputted in the applied project follow-up system and/or at the request of the user.

14. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that use is made of a thesaurus and that this thesaurus is developed by successively applying the following steps: - selecting training examples, i.e. a set of representative documents which are relevant for the thesaurus to be developed;

- performing an assessment by means of a test on the basis of the inputted documents ,-

- repeating the aforesaid three steps several times in order to refine the thesaurus and the pattern collection.

15. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that when inputting data in the aforesaid data file, and in particular when thereby building up a thesaurus, at least a part of the inputted data will be considered as having a certain consequence as a function of the project phase.

16. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that a continuous, thesaurus-based task analysis is applied when carrying out the project, whereby the above-mentioned data files are used in this method in order to draw the conclusions, by means of an automated document analysis with reference to the following project characteristics:

- which project tasks are being implemented and with what intensity?

- Which project tasks are going well and which project tasks hold a risk of delay? - Which project tasks diverge?

17. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that use is at least made of the analysis of story-based visual content, in particular of the analysis of information containing images, which images also represent a certain story or certain changes as a function of time.

18. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that, when analysing story based visual content, thesauri are used as reference components, whereby the link to the thesaurus preferably allows for language- based queries on image material, as well as for a more sophisticated interpretation of series of images, making use of thesaurus extensions up to metalevels of the scenarios .

19. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that a query processing is applied which is optimised in that one or several additional data clusters are used, apart from already existing usual tables, such that every usual so-called 'docid' is coupled to its lists of keywords, of concepts and of full text terms.

20. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that a query processing is applied which is optimised in that use is made of a 'structured storage' .

21. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that the content of the data file, in particular of the thesaurus, is automatically managed in a dynamic manner, to which end the used lexicon is automatically assessed in order to allow for a correct classification and/or in that the lexicon available in the data file is automatically reassessed.

22. Method according to any of the preceding claims, characterised in that it is applied in a similar manner for competence management .

23. System for realising the method according to any of claims 1 to 22, characterised in that it consists of electronic means, including algorithms, by means of which the above-mentioned method can be implemented.