Data processing: financial – business practice – management – or co – Automated electrical financial or business practice or... – Discount or incentive
Reexamination Certificate
1999-04-15
2001-12-04
Hafiz, Tariq R. (Department: 2163)
Data processing: financial, business practice, management, or co
Automated electrical financial or business practice or...
Discount or incentive
C705S007380
Reexamination Certificate
active
06327571
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to techniques for generating, transforming and displaying information characterizing hardware realization processes in a company, organization, project or other entity.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Process assessment techniques are often used to characterize the performance of, e.g., a company, organization or project, with respect to their development practices in a particular type of technology. For example, software process assessment techniques are known in the art and utilized to characterize performance of various software development projects. Such techniques may make use of, e.g., a capability maturity model and a database of performance data on related projects in order to provide a basis for performance comparison. In a typical arrangement, a questionnaire may be administered to a designated number of participants associated with a given software development project. The responses of the participants are processed to determine an average score for the project, and scores determined for other related projects, e.g., by other companies, may be made available as part of a summary report.
A drawback of existing process assessment techniques is that such techniques are unable to provide adequate display of process assessment information. For example, existing process assessment techniques fail to incorporate question-by-question and category-by-category comparison with the performance of other companies, organizations or projects. Another disadvantage of existing process assessment techniques is that they are not readily applicable to other types of technologies. For example, existing software process assessment techniques generally cannot be applied to hardware-related process assessment.
A need therefore exists for improved techniques for generating, transforming and displaying information characterizing process assessment, including hardware-related process assessment, such that the information can be more easily understood and more effectively utilized than has heretofore been possible.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is directed to a computer-implemented method and apparatus for generating, processing and transforming data relating to process assessment for a company, organization, project or other entity. In an illustrative embodiment, a processing system including a computer or a set of computers processes user responses to a questionnaire or other request for hardware realization process assessment (HRPA) information, i.e., information relating to hardware development processes. The system transforms the received data into a graphical format suitable for display to a user via a terminal, a printout or in another user-perceptible medium. The graphical format is configured such that multiple categories of information are simultaneously displayed along with calibration information indicative of the performance of other related companies, organizations, projects, etc. A given user may therefore be provided with an indication regarding their HRPA-related performance levels relative to those achieved by a number of other similar users.
The HRPA techniques of the present invention may be implemented in one or more software programs running on a personal computer, workstation, microcomputer, mainframe computer or any other type of programmable digital processor. The invention substantially improves the generation, processing and presentation of information relating to HRPA. These and other features and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the accompanying drawings and the following detailed description.
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Khayat Zakwan
McDonough Kathryn Mary
Nikoonezhad Seema
Nygren Stephen F.
Hafiz Tariq R.
Lucent Technologies - Inc.
Norman Marc
Ryan & Mason & Lewis, LLP
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