Methodology infrastructure and delivery vehicle

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.

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.