Patent ID: 8626698

Claim:
A computer-implemented method for calculating a probability of project success for a new project, the method comprising: maintaining, by a computing device, a database of historical project management performance data including i) project information associated with at least one completed project and ii) member information associated with at least one team member; forming, by the computing device, a predictive probabilistic graphical model, wherein forming the predictive probabilistic graphical model comprises: receiving, by the computing device, user inputs specifying a plurality of variables and conditional dependency relationships among the plurality of variables, wherein the plurality of variables include: (i) at least one conditionally independent variable, and (ii) at least one conditionally dependent variable that is dependent on the at least one conditionally independent variable, the at least one conditionally dependent variable comprising a success variable representing a probability of project success; and calculating, by the computing device, a probability distribution for each of the plurality of variables to characterize one or more of the conditional dependency relationships, wherein each probability distribution includes at least one probability corresponding to a state of the variable determined based on the historical project management performance data; calculating, by the computing device, the probability of project success of the new project by defining the at least one conditionally independent variable of the predictive probabilistic graphical model and solving the success variable in the context of the predictive probabilistic graphical model; and refining, by the computing device, the predictive probabilistic graphical model using additional historical project management performance data by altering at least one of the plurality of variables, conditional dependency relationships or conditional distributions.