Abstract:
A project workforce management system defines project positions and may correlate the project positions to project tasks. By defining a project in terms of project positions, a manager can better control determine the level of personnel needed to work on a project and complete projects more efficiently. Also, the correlation between the project positions and project tasks allows a manager to determine the level of effort that is needed by each project position to complete the project.

Description:
TECHNICAL FIELD  
         [0001]    This invention relates to project management systems and methods, and more particularly to a software-based system and method for project management.  
         BACKGROUND  
         [0002]    Professional Service Organizations operate through projects, i.e. through discrete engagements for external or internal clients or customers, delivered according to an agreed-upon scope, schedule, fee, and set of deliverables. In the services supply chain of a Professional Service Organization people and time are the most important resources where delivering on a project is paramount.  
           [0003]    Service Providers normally sell projects and manpower as their products. Thus they need the integration with a project management solution throughout the customer engagement lifecycle. In the engage phase, a project is created and structured according to the specific needs, high level project planning is performed to estimate the personnel and other resources required and to structure the workload. Thus the project structure with phases (work breakdown structure elements) and the necessary activities (tasks) have to be defined. Costs and potential revenues have to be calculated, timelines to be scheduled and probably personnel and other resources soft-booked, in order to be able to do reasonable and reliable quotations that can be fulfilled in case they are accepted by the customer. In the transact phase, when the project is won, project planning is continually refined, budgeting, cost-and revenue planning is performed more detailed, and resources are hard-booked. In the fulfill phase, consultants work on the project tasks, and record their activities and times, travel-and other expenses on work breakdown structure elements. These expenses or costs occurred can be billed resource related, according to project milestones, periodically, or with a fixed price. The project manager monitors costs or budgets vs. revenues, timelines vs. deadlines, project progress, and takes appropriate action.  
           [0004]    Good project management is an important factor to the success of a project. A project may be thought of as a collection of activities and tasks designed to achieve a specific goal of the organization, with specific performance or quality requirements while meeting any subject time and cost constraints. Project management refers to managing the activities that lead to the successful completion of a project. Project management focuses on finite deadlines and objectives. A number of tools may be used to assist with project management and assessment.  
           [0005]    Project management may be used when planning of personnel resources and check capacities is desired. The project may be linked to the objects in a professional services life cycle and may accompany the objects from the opportunity over quotation, contract, time and expense (T&amp;E) recording, billing, period-end-activities until the final reporting. Naturally the project gets even more detailed when moving through this cycle.  
           [0006]    A project may arise as an opportunity or a request for quotation (inquiry) sent by a potential customer. When the opportunity or request arrives, a decision has to take place by the manager whether the opportunity should be pursued or a quotation be submitted. Even at this early stage, it is important to check whether the company has the necessary capacity and resources with the required skills and qualifications available at the requested time.  
           [0007]    Typically for any given project, several project tasks are defined. Project tasks describe the activities and phases that have to be performed in the project such as writing of blueprints, customizing, testing etc. and can be arranged hierarchically.  
           [0008]    Often however, it is desired to view a project in terms of the project roles that are needed. Project roles define a position a person may occupy in a project, such as project manager, consultant, tester, etc. This allows a project manager to obtain a better view of the manpower that may be required to complete a project.  
           [0009]    What is needed is a system that allows a project to be defined using project positions instead of project tasks. Project positions describe project roles like project manager, consultant, tester, etc. By defining a project using project positions, a project manager may plan a project only using the project roles.  
         SUMMARY  
         [0010]    A project workforce management system defines project positions and may correlate the project positions to project tasks. By defining a project in terms of project positions, a manager can better control determine the level of personnel needed to work on a project and complete projects more efficiently. Also, the correlation between the project positions and project tasks allows a manager to determine the level of effort that is needed by each project position to complete the project. 
       
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS  
       [0011]    These and other features and advantages of the invention will become more apparent upon reading the following detailed description and upon reference to the accompanying drawings.  
         [0012]    [0012]FIG. 1 illustrates the overall structure of a project management system.  
         [0013]    [0013]FIG. 2 illustrates a process for generating a project in a project management system.  
         [0014]    [0014]FIG. 3 illustrates a process for determining project positions in a project management system. 
     
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION  
       [0015]    Projects very often are created by the consultants manager or by a dedicated project manager due to a specific need. It might be necessary to estimate project costs and timelines to be able to bid and send a quotation to a potential customer or to be able to decide whether an opportunity should be pursued or to be able to fulfill the commitments of a contract with a customer. If a model is created using only project tasks, the project manager may not be able to easily determine whether he has sufficient manpower to perform the project. However, modeling a project using project positions provides the project manager with a simple view of the personnel requirements to complete a project.  
         [0016]    [0016]FIG. 1 illustrates the overall structure of project management system  100  showing the relationship between a project  105 , project tasks  110 , project positions  115 , and resources  120 . The project  100  is a strategy to achieve a defined goal of an organization. The project  100  may be divided into a series of project tasks  110  and/or a series of project positions  115 .  
         [0017]    The project  105  may be structured by creation of a hierarchical model, consisting of project positions  115 , with an unlimited number of levels to be able to detail the project  105  as far as necessary. The project positions  115  may be the basis for planning, analysis, description, control, and monitoring costs, basic dates, and budgets. The project positions  115  are used to cover and continually update plan and actual data. Due to the hierarchical structure summarizations from bottom to top and also distributions from top to bottom are possible.  
         [0018]    Templates should be available to simplify the creation of such a project  105  and copying rules are important to create one project  105  out of another.  
         [0019]    The project tasks  110  define activities and phases to be performed in the project  105 . For example, for a construction project examples of project tasks  110  may include preparing blue prints, obtaining the proper permits, preparing the foundation, ordering the lumber, hiring sub-contractors, etc. The project tasks  110  describe operational activities or phases in the project  105  that should be performed like analysis, business blueprint, implementation, and documentation. The project tasks  110  describe qualification requirements and time demand: To be able, e.g., to write a business blueprint document it is necessary to have attended a specific training session and to be available in the first weeks of September. Project tasks  110  have a hierarchical structure, i.e. tasks can be grouped or split up. Sometimes the refinement and split of tasks into several sub-tasks occurs at a later time in the life cycle of the project  110 .  
         [0020]    The project positions  115  define project roles by job title. For the same construction example, project positions  115  may include architect, foreman, electrician, mason, supervisor, etc. The project positions  115  may include qualifications and requirements for each project position  115 . Thus, a project position  115  may require availability (such as during the month of July) and certain certifications (such as certification for high voltage installations, professional licenses). The project positions  115  represent roles in the project  105  and describe what roles with what requirements exist in the project  105 . The project positions  115  may be described by fields like position type, category, time demand, description, qualification requirements, etc. One example for such a position is the project manager. The qualification requirements for this position might be: account expert, at least two similar projects done, available from September until November for at least 80% of the time. Project positions  115  are non-hierarchical and can be represented by a linear list assigned to a project header. It might be necessary to change the project positions  115  continually during the life cycle of the project  105 .  
         [0021]    The resources  120  describe a particular person or group that may fill a project position. For a company project  105 , the resources  120  may be all the employees of the company. The resources  120  are listed by name and may also include job title, availability, qualifications or other information. The resources  120  may also include any other personnel the company may use, including contractors and temporary workers.  
         [0022]    [0022]FIG. 2 illustrates a process  200  for generating a project in a project management system. The process  200  begins at a START block  205 . Proceeding to block  210 , an opportunity of inquiry is obtained. An opportunity or inquiry asks for a simple or complex engagement, where one or more persons are required to perform dedicated tasks. This engagement is requested to be performed in a defined time frame.  
         [0023]    Proceeding to block  215 , the process  200  defines a project  105  based on the opportunity or inquiry. The project  105  may be defined to check whether it is possible and reasonable to make an offer (quotation).  
         [0024]    Proceeding to block  220 , the requirements and tasks of the project  105  may be structured as project tasks  110  and the positions (roles) have to be estimated and structured as project positions  115 . As described above, the project tasks  110  define activities and phases to be performed in the project  105  and the project positions  115  define project roles by job title.  
         [0025]    Proceeding to block  225 , the project positions  115  and the project tasks  110  are correlated. Within the project  105  a correlation between project positions  115  and project tasks  110  is performed by the project manager or a resource manager. The correlation describes what project position (role)  115  is responsible to work on a project task  110 . It is possible to correlate one project position  115  to several project tasks  110 . During the correlation of a project position  115  to a project task  110 , the project position  115  acts as a supplier or (nominal) resource that fulfills the time demand and qualification requirements of the project task  110 . Thus a matching of time and qualification data between project positions  115  and project tasks  110  should be possible.  
         [0026]    Proceeding to block  230 , an optional report may be prepared. An integrated reporting functionality is available within the project  105 . The reporting functionality may show all project tasks  110  for a project position  115  or all project positions  115  that are assigned to a project task  110 .  
         [0027]    The process  200  can be accomplished by a consulting manager or by a (potential) project manager using software on a computer. The project  105  does not have to be highly complex or lengthy. For example, in a case of a so-called spot-consulting scenario (example: a consultant is needed for two days to define a report) the consulting project consists only of one position and the single task is represented by the consulting project itself.  
         [0028]    The planning of structures, costs, revenues, resources, timeliness etc. can and will normally be refined and detailed during the life cycle of the project  105 . For example, in the opportunity phase it might be enough to plan a project  105  in a very rough way to estimate costs and timelines. If a quotation is sent to the (potential) customer and is accepted and a contract is signed, the same project  105  can be used as an operative project. In this case, more details, more exact times, costs, revenues, personnel resources etc. may be added. During the execution of the project  105 , these values could be updated permanently.  
         [0029]    [0029]FIG. 3 illustrates a process  300  for determining project positions in a project management system. The process  300  begins at a START block  305 . Proceeding to block  310 , the process divides a project  105  into one or more positional goals. The positional goals are items that need to be performed by the project positions to successfully complete the project  105 . The positional goals are differ from the project tasks  110  in that the positional goals define items in only one project position  115 , where the project tasks  110  may be an item that multiple project positions  115  work on to complete. Of course, there may be similar positional goals among project positions  115 .  
         [0030]    Proceeding to block  315 , the process  300  defines project positions  115  necessary to achieve the positional goals. The project manager should be able to easily determine the project positions  115  necessary based on the positional goals. For example, if a positional goal requires two man years of effort, and the project  105  is given six months to complete, the project manager can divide the positional goal into four separate positional goals, with each positional goal being assigned to a separate project position  115 .  
         [0031]    Proceeding to block  320 , the process  300  assigns the positional goals to each project position  115 . Each project position  115  may have one or more positional goal assigned, but generally each positional goal is only assigned to a single project position  115 .  
         [0032]    Proceeding to block  325 , the process  300  determines the requirements for each project positions  115 . Because the project positions  115  have been defined by positional goals, the project manager may easily determine the qualifications necessary for each project position  115 . For example, if a positional goal requires software coding, the project position  115  may have a requirement of expertise in a particular software language. After determining the requirements for the project positions  115 , the process  300  terminates in an END block  330 .  
         [0033]    Numerous variations and modifications of the invention will become readily apparent to those skilled in the art. Accordingly, the invention may be embodied in other specific forms without departing from its spirit or essential characteristics.