Thumbprint CPM™—Collaborative Program Management

Program Intelligence: Harnessing the Wealth of Information

Projects generate a wealth of information that is frequently stored in the mind of a project manager or on an outdated spreadsheet. It is often considered a luxury for team members collaborating on projects to share vital time and cost-saving information with their counterparts. Thus, much of a company's program intelligence (project and process knowledge) is difficult to truly leverage across other projects within the program.

Thumbprint CPM helps companies harness the wealth of information by effectively capturing, retaining, and applying program intelligence. For example, if one project manager discovers a new process that will save the company money, the user can enter the conditions in which this new process will apply into the system. Thumbprint CPM will then "push" this knowledge to other project managers when the same project conditions apply. In this way, Thumbprint CPM helps companies increase efficiency by mining their program intelligence.

– Click here to read articles about Program Intelligence

Automated Project Generation: Overcoming the "Template Trap"

Interactive Project Generation Quickly Creates Project Plans

Traditional project management systems utilize static project and process templates to manage projects. These templates must be modified manually, resulting in hundreds or even thousands of disparate templates. Thumbprint CPM, conversely, builds projects without the use of templates by using a dynamic process model called a knowledgebase. This knowledgebase taps into existing databases or asks interview-like questions during project creation to obtain the needed conditions surrounding a specific project applying knowledge learned on past projects (see diagram to right). Thumbprint CPM can also search external systems (such as accounting software) to find answers to these questions during project generation---further extending your ability to share knowledge across your company. The knowledgebase adapts to conditions you set during project generation and it takes just minutes to create a new project.

Program Change Management

Thumbprint CPM's dynamic process model uniquely helps companies manage and incorporate change in their programs. With a feature called Process Synchronization, specified users can access the dynamic process model, make revisions to the process, incorporate new criteria, add/modify checklists, make changes to resource requirements, or revise any other task attribute quickly and easily. Once your team discovers the process change the appropriate administrator can use the Process Synchronization feature to conditionally apply these important changes automatically to projects in progress. All future projects will be generated using these changes that are applied to the dynamic process model.

For example, a user might discover a new time-saving process that is applicable for projects within the US that take less than six months to complete. The user enters the conditions and parameters under which the new process will apply into the dynamic process model. Once the information is entered, each project schedule that meets that condition will be flagged allowing the user to select how to incorporate this change into existing projects saving the company time and money. Any project or process data can be modified at any time and the dynamic process model will permeate changes in this way. Thumbprint CPM's knowledgebase technology helps companies turn data and information from past projects into knowledge to leverage and apply across programs.

Project Re-Construct

Frequently the project process must begin in order to understand if certain deliverables, tasks, and resources are required. Thumbprint CPM's dynamic process model contains all the conditions that you desire and can automatically apply them at the appropriate time during the project. Project Re-Construct allows project managers to revise project decisions, incorporate new project requirements, and re-execute selected portions or even entire project plans based on revised decisions at any point during the project life cycle. Unlike legacy systems that use static templates, Thumbprint CPM's dynamic process model automatically creates these new project components automatically tying task dependencies together avoiding timely manual project revisions. Users can also immediately see the impact of these project changes in Thumbprint CPM's real-time schedule.

As an example of this feature, a company's real estate group my be considering several sites in a metropolitan area. As the team uses Thumbprint CPM to manage and track each site only certain sites may require additional site visits and studies for environmental conditions. In addition, the design team would want to wait until the executive committee approves the final selected site before the design phase would know whether or not the project requires variances, easements, or other conditions discovered during due diligence. Once these issues are discovered, the project manager can use Thumbprint CPM's "Project Re-construct" feature to select these optional components in the project process at just the right time.

Project Re-Roll

Thumbprint CPM's dynamic process model provides the project manager the ability to re-execute portions of the project as required and as often as needed. As many construction owners face project scope changes this feature becomes invaluable as it clearly tracks each time tasks need to be redone providing a historical roadmap. Unlike legacy systems that use static templates, Thumbprint CPM's dynamic process model automatically creates new versions of tasks and imbeds former project activity for reference and comparison. Thumbprint CPM's dynamic process model automatically re-associates new task dependencies automatically all while preserving all communication, information, and collaboration inside the original tasks that are not present, but closed.

As an example of this feature, a company's construction documents have been submitted to permitting and distributed to bidders. Then, a new design change affects these documents already in-progress. The required design tasks as well as any permitting and bidding process can be selected for "Re-roll" while capturing prior collaboration on permit approvals and bids already received. The project schedule is automatically revised so users can see the impact. of the revised design changes.