Barry M. Meltzer, MS, CPA, (yes, CPA) and Christopher Hartsough, MS (both from Caltech, JPL) will discuss this flexible yet controlled system for process planning, management, tracking, reporting that also provides the basis for statistical process improvement.  This system has been developed (is being developed) using 'standard' Microsoft tools (MS Project, Adaptive Server Pages (ASP) with JScript, VBScript, and ActiveX Data Objects) as the building blocks of a powerful (albeit sometimes painful) development environment.  The initial application has been tracking the progress of an audit, but the possible applications are very diverse. 

Both Chris and Barry have been around JPL for awhile, but decline to say how long. 
 

Barry Meltzer introduced himself as the Institute Compliance Officer for Caltech, which he translates as "Chief Auditor", and said that this was the premiere presentation of what could be titled as "Management for the Disorganized".  His introduction was quite humorous and tongue in cheek.  He identified key things that must be accomplished:  Deliver on time and budget, meet metrics requirements, and get someone else to do the work.  He claims that managing auditors is like herding cats.  I wish I had recorded the hilarious examples he provided.  Apparently Mr.  Meltzer has not heard that auditors aren't supposed to be funny.  He finished with some more serious comments about the necessity to communicate in order to achieve success and noted that email was extremely important in doing this.  It is important to understand what you do, to document what you do, and to develop metrics to measure what you have done.  As part of accomplishing this you will become in compliance with ISO9001. 

He then introduced Chris Hartsough to present an on-screen live demonstration from his computer.  The project presented started out as a program for a crime lab which wanted a system for managing audits.  They started out thinking that the job should be fairly easy using standard Microsoft tools including Project and Access.  They assumed a fairly short learning curve with Microsoft Project basically doing it all.  The reality was that the learning curve could be better described as "'The Learning' by Stephen King".  After this experience the project reached the "I believe it will work" stage leading to the current "It works mostly" stage. 

A major problem, security and privacy, could have been subtitled "Why you can't get there with shrink-wrapped software". Microsoft Project doesn't even consider that there might be a problem.  Much of the work was in developing processes to ensure that users could access only the areas to which they were authorized entry.  Users were allowed to see only  things that they needed.  The properties of the system included things everyone needed and the special applications  specific to particular users.  The system "Big Picture" covered many little pictures.  The little pictures are where the real work is, and they are always changing.  The Big Picture for a particular activity would involve the announcement (they're coming), the entrance conference (they're here), field work, a draft audit and response, a complete audit report and response, possibly followed by corrective actions and finally the closeout. 

The system provides on-line reports of open audits and keeps a record of the audit history.  At the start, the software is used to draft a plan and the schedules which have to be met.  The people involved have to review and sign off on such things as work to be accomplished and delivery dates.  As the activity progresses, additional details such as conferences and required decision points can be added.  All of this is accomplished over the Internet; there are session identifiers required to access a particular area and personal identification is required to determine that the user is authorized for this information. 

An example of the dynamics of the process would be a disagreement on the dates when particular items were to be accomplished.  This would be revealed because the users must sign off on dates and what is to be delivered, and the other authorized users will have on-line access to the information.  A conflict would normally require a resolution conference of the affected parties.  The system keeps a record of the conflict resolutions and a history of both the previous schedules and deliveries and the new ones.  This has been an extremely useful and important part of the software.  The software does not do any automatic "management" for anyone.  It provides a tool that managers can use to describe projects, and keeps track of decisions and outcomes.  The software provides a tool that both helps users plan things and keeps them honest by maintaining a step-by-step audit of what has been done. 

One of the limitations of the system is that only a single copy of Microsoft Project can be open at one time.  This isn't supposed to be true, but the operating system freezes if two copies are opened.  To compensate for this the software provides for each user to provide a lock before opening Project and then unlock it for access by other users.   The presentation was very interesting and informative.  It was also very entertaining -- something we were unable to predict in advance of the meeting. 

This was the fourth meeting of the year, and was attended by 19 people.