E&P Glossary
As you navigate through this document or our website you will find papers, articles and application notes that discuss our technology and our solutions. We have found that typical software industry jargon just does not address true business needs.
We would rather you did not put us, our technology, and our solutions into a box, or worse still, into the wrong box! We have therefore provided you with a set of narrowly defined terms that we use to communicate our technology and solutions.
360 Degree Assessment
This term is used to define a round of assessments performed for an employee using a combination of self-assessment, peer reviews, supervisory reviews, subordinate reviews, and project management reviews from projects manager to whom the employee was seconded during the period for which the review is being done.
Action Items
Action Items are a list of documented actions proposed and being acted on by assigned people who make decisions and derive results of their decisions so that the issues that drove the action items can be closed out.Aggregation
Projects and deals being matured through a process will generate metadata that describe the state and progress of these projects and deals. These are published through the toll-gates of the stage-gated processes. The dashboards are driven by the data that is published and aggregated across the zone of interest for the dashboard. The type of data that is aggregated or included may be the whole or a portion as defined by a theme within the whole of the data.
Assessments
This term is used in this context to define the review, the performance, capabilities, and attributes of interest for an employee using multiple reviews including self-assessments, and peer assessments and form supervisors and subordinates.
Assessment Criteria
The assessment criteria are the company's criteria used to evaluate an employee in terms of performance, capabilities and skills, and personality and aptitude for positions in the company.
Awareness
Awareness is used to define a state of "complete and ready" access to related objects and information while one works in a business context or while performing a task. The term is used to describe a state of knowledge and relevance about these objects and their value to decision making.
Blogs
Blogs are used to define text streams that are captured by a number of people whose individual contributions are logged and date/time-stamped to create a thread that is visible online through Forms or other online viewing objects. They can be thought of as chat boards.
Business Events
In this context, business events are ad hoc or systemic events generated in the course of normal business activities and decision making.
Decisions
Decisions are assertions about actions that must be taken at the strategic level to drive the business in a particular direction; or direct operational activities from the back offices, or to resolve action items. Decisions can be made by an authorized person, or decisions can be shaped by the consensus of multiple stakeholders using many voting schemas. Decisions are to be treated with due respect for prevailing compliance regimes
Deliverables
Deliverables are a set of pre-planned, structured set of items promised under a contract, or as a result of an agreement during a meeting. Deliverables usually are significant contractually.
Issues
Problems are identified at various business events in the course of normal business activities and decision making. Issues are resolved by Action Items that are proposed and acted on. Issues and their definition are keyed off in building the lessons learnt for a range of typical problems.
Meetings
Meetings are defined as a virtual representation of a physical face to face or telephone meeting among many participants or asynchronous meetings conducted to resolve a list of identified agenda items. Meetings may be triggered by other business events or they may be ad hoc. A meeting event includes the front end planning of the agenda and participants, the decisions made during the meeting and the follow up workflow to close out the meeting or it continuance into other meetings.
Milestones are planned events when certain planned deliverables are provided. Program reviews, toll-gate reviews, contractual delivery dates and acceptance tests are examples of milestones. Milestones are pre-planned - usually. Delays in meeting milestones are triggers for alerts and concerns and they can cause issues to be identified.
Mitigations
Mitigations are planned action items that will be triggered if the risks become real and it is treated as a issue that must be resolved. Mitigation plans take into account contingencies and preventive measures as well protective measures that must be put in place to avoid the realization of the risk. Examples of mitigation may be a hedge investment, or a sprinkler system in a fire hazard.
Risks
Risks are identified as potential issues that might arise under a set of conditions and which may cause danger to the health safety, or environment; changes to plans that can cause cost and schedule increases; uncertainty in the current plans for completion of the mission.
Business Information Framework
An organizational structure for information that is related to how business is conducted and that supports the needs for rapid knowledgeable decision making. A business information framework is capable of handling disparate forms of data, information and knowledge.
Business Intelligence
Insights into the business is built through the flow and aggregation and correlation of data and information that is generated at various points in the business operations and business intelligence is the process of consolidating this information and making sense out of it to support medium and long term decision making.
Business Process Management
The Orchestra platform is a unique system of records that organizes business information; provides seamless email, messaging and collaboration capabilities; and workflow automation for the automated flow of information with complete data integrity and audit traceability. This potent combination is used to create and deploy powerful business solutions for business processes across dispersed enterprises.
C2C
Context to Context communication is a way to communicate with a relevant or related context without having to know who the specific people involved are. C2C can be thought of as communication between one business function to another.
Communication
Communication is used to narrowly define multiple ways in which people can convey their content, instructions, insights, and responses to other people primarily through emails and electronic media
Competitive Intelligence
This is the process of building knowledge and understanding of the business and its relationships to external stakeholders to create a higher level of competitiveness. It does not mean competitor intelligence.
Confidential Notes, Assessments
These terms are use to define memos that are written into an employee's files that are sensitive and that which can only be used with people directly relevant to the career choices of the employees and which may be subject to prevailing laws of privacy and disclosure.
Connecting the dots
Business is a complex connection of contexts in which people work to solve internal and external problems. Connecting the dots is the process of connecting or linking related contexts to develop a better understanding of the business, its nature and its complexities so that better decisions can be made. We think of connecting the dots to make sense of intelligence gathered, or of activities that require information from other places in the organization.
Contact
Contact is the virtual definition of a real person and it contains the information related to a person contacted by the communication (email or meetings) including their address, telephone, and other related information such as their experience or expertise
Content
Content is all the matter contained in the published works of people using a number of disparate media including text, pictures, and drawings in electronic or physical documents, and the matter contained in letters, emails, articles, instructions, alerts and notifications.
Context
A common virtual space in which there is a shared purpose and like minded people with disparate interests and backgrounds who work together to make decisions and understand what is going on.
Contextual Awareness
Contextual Awareness is synonymous with Situational Awareness extends the state of awareness to a specific context since the context itself defines the "situation".
Contextual Communication
Contextual Communication - Communicating within the context or between contexts and maintaining the relationship of the (email) communication content to their contexts.
Contextual Tree
A taxonomy of contexts used to represent how the business functions are organized or viewed by a community of people in a company
Dashboard
Dashboards are graphical presentations of a variety of information types and their status delivered through an on line view through a browser or a portal.
Data
Data are the raw quantitative or qualitative components that are constantly generated by business processes or analysis that when put together with insights will create a picture from which tactical decisions are made. Data tends to drive operational decisions where the process, tools, or equipments used are clearly defined and operations are provided with a codified set of rules on which decisions can be made. An operator who shuts down the machine because the temperature rises above a pre-agreed warning level is making an operational decision based on data - in this case the temperature.
Data Intensive Process
Processes that utilize a combination of quantitative data related to some qualitative data and where the decision making affects tactical and operations activities.
Disciplines
Disciplines are the entire range of definitions of expertise used by a company for classification or categorization. These include technical, commercial, contractual, and process related areas grouped and organized into a taxonomy or structure.
Discovery
Actively or passively find relevant information using explicit search technology or access readily available information kept ready to be served based on the context in which the user is working.
Domain Trees
Domain trees are synonymous with taxonomies. The only added feature is that in Orchestra we allow multiple taxonomies to exist so that each tree or hierarchy can represent a different dimension or theme. Breaking down taxonomies into smaller bite sized structures provides flexibility and it encourages organic growth of the definitions with continuous validation. Examples of domain trees are Corporate Organizations, Regions, Technologies, Markets, Disciplines and such.
eDiscovery
Electronic discovery of digital content and data in support of a legal request to gather all content that may be material to a potential suit
Email Services (SMTP Services)
Email services are triggered by requests sent by a user through an email or form that is attached to the email. Services provided by such requests can include status of information or the information content itself.
European Privacy Laws
This term refers to the European regulation with respect to privacy and disclosure of private assessments and confidential notes written about a person, who may or may not be an employee, to that person.
Experience
Experience is referred to in this context to mean the actual activities that an individual was involved in the course of performing a business function, executing tasks in a project, or being in a decision making or directing role in a business. Experience is captured around a time line with a start and end date. The nature of experience is cataloged against a standard set of definitions so that it is meaningful in future for building the individuals curriculum vitae or the company's human resource expertise models.
Expertise
Expertise is defined as the capabilities and proficiency level of an individual in one or more specific definitions used to categorize experience. Expertise does not have a time line, but expertise is time variant as the level of proficiency and the areas of expertise wax and wane based on the individual's contemporary experiences.
Expertise Profile
The expertise profile of an individual is the level of proficiency of the individual in each of the areas defined by the company as the expertise model. This is a vector that spells out the areas of expertise and the proficiency level. Together they create an overall profile of the individual and it is used for discovery of the right candidates during staffing or for strategic workforce planning purposes.
Expertise Decay Model
Expertise decay models are used to depreciate or appreciate expertise proficiencies based on contemporary experiences, refresher training courses, and even the lack of such activities. These models are typically developed by the company's HR department using actuarial data.
FDK
This is a software tool kit for developers to build or configure strategic business processes. FDK is a part of Orchestra. See Details
Forms and eForms
In the Orchestra context, forms (and eForms for electronic forms) are interfaces for capturing structured information from people or to present structured information to people. Forms and the data contained therein are available as online forms that must be accessed through the network or off-line through the use of Excel (Microsoft) spreadsheet templates or other form objects in the market.
Funnel, Stage-gated, Phase Gated Processes, Hoppers
These terms are commonly used to describe structured sequential processes that affect multiple stakeholders who are stewards of specific instances of projects, ideas, opportunities that must be matured consistently and will result in decisions related to investments, construction, execution, and improvement of business activities. These processes are marked by independent stages where work is done on the projects or opportunities and mature them. Projects and opportunities enter stages and exit them through toll gates where reviewers decide if the maturation is sufficient to warrant promotion to the next stage.
Information
Information is structured data of disparate types including quantitative and qualitative data. Information tends to have focused scope and it may relate to a single context. Examples of information are financial reports, portal iViews, or presentation slides. Information tends to drive tactical and back office decision making where the context in which the information is presented is well known and business processes have established the range of decisions that must be made using such information.
Information Management
Commonly referred to as IM, this term is used to define the business processes and protocols used to manage business related information that is used exclusively for the purpose of managing the core business of the company. It includes the organization of information for easy access and use by business users; the way information is disseminated, shared or hidden; the business roles authorized to access the information; and automated processes for publishing and subscribing to business related information.
I Wish…
I Wish… is a solution and software on demand process that is offered by PointCross to its customers and their users. The ideas submitted by the users are utomatically triaged and processed and the resulting solutions are made available to the users on a schedule that is mutually agreed with them.
Knowledge
Knowledge, in this context, is structured information of disparate types that are related to each other. It represents a seamless organization of interrelated information that together creates a story or insight into the business and its activities. Knowledge tends to stitch together information from multiple contexts. Strategic decisions tend to be made with knowledge.
Knowledge Intensive Processes
Processes that use structured information with a clear understanding of their contexts, goals, and a traceable methodology are considered knowledge intensive processes. People working in this environment are charted with managing risks, high value capital expenditures, and meeting strategic intent.
Link(s)
Links are used to define relationships among two or more contexts in a contextual tree; or elements in a taxonomy or domain tree. The links can be set up to define the nature of the relationship and these relationships are defined by the process owners or the owners of the taxonomy or contextual structures.
Metadata
Metadata is the collection of meta-tags and other data that are associated with the objects. The metadata of an object is the entire set of attributes that complete the definition, relevance and value of the object. Metadata can be definitional, descriptive, and flat or structured data.
Meta-tag
Meta-tags are attributes or definitions related to any object in the system. These attributes are present in one or more domain trees, or corporate taxonomies. Meta-tags are used to classify the object along one or more dimensions and they are an important tool when searching for information and connecting relevant contexts.
Narratives
Narratives are text and graphics used to describe contexts.
Ontology
(definition courtesy Wikipedia)
In both computer science and information science, an ontology is a data model that represents a set of concepts within a domain and the relationships between those concepts. It is used to reason about the objects within that domain.
Ontologies are used in artificial intelligence, the semantic web, software engineering, biomedical informatics and information architecture as a form of knowledge representation about the world or some part of it. Ontologies generally describe:
Individuals: the basic or "ground level" objects
Classes: sets, collections, or types of objects[1]
Attributes: properties, features, characteristics, or parameters that objects can have and share
Relations: ways that objects can be related to one another
Events: the changing of attributes or relations
Ontology, Contextual Structure
While a contextual tree relates business contexts into a hierarchy; the ontology is the structure of relationships among contexts in multiple trees and it also contains the relationships of these contexts to the taxonomy definitions and related content. It is the best and most complete representation of the state of knowledge in a company.
Ontology Engine
The Ontology Engine is the system that incorporates the ontology elements into a hierarchical or network structure. The engine provides the tools to create, edit, review, and modify the structure and elements of the ontology
Objective, Goal
These terms are used to define the ultimate purpose or the expected end result of activities conducted in any business context. These may be localized to contexts or they may be aggregated to drive key performance indices used to measure performance and results of business activities.
OBS, Organization Breakdown Structure
The OBS is a structure of the project or corporate or business unit organization. It contains a set of role names and there are people assigned to them.
Orchestra
Enterprise server software designed and built by PointCross for capturing and organizing all data, content, emails and other business information that relate to business contexts. See Details
PC LDM
PointCross Lifecycle Data Management that includes processes and workflows as well as format converters for data from any valid format to any other format for the purposes of submission to a regulatory agency or reporting
Peer Reviews
These reviews of an employee are conducted by other employees who work with the employee being reviewed in a collegiate manner and it is used to assess the team performance of an employee and interpersonal skills as well as leadership skills and aptitude.
Portal
Portals are a corporate website that aggregates information flows from a variety of sources to form a single consolidated view for the user
Portfolio
A portfolio is a collection of similar object (projects, ideas, assets, opportunities or expertise) that are considered as a whole, or in terms of a basket of representative objects so that strategic decisions regarding the direction and make up of these objects can be analyzed and compared with strategic directions that have been laid out. Portfolio level analysis and decision making can affect strategic thinking and direction or they can be used to direct tactical decisions and directions.
Presence Awareness
"Complete and Ready" availability of related contexts, content, and contacts (people) based on what the user is engaged in presently. In Orchestra we extend its meaning to "sense the user's intend and make related and relevant information ready for access if needed.
Processes
These are codified methodologies for maturing business information and driving decision making at the right time and based on accepted business rules in the company. Processes are intended to provide an environment in which there is repeatability and consistency in decision making and to ensure that there is compliance to the governance of such processes to the satisfaction of the key stakeholders.
Program
Programs are a collection of projects that are components of a larger mission. Programs will roll up information collected from constituent projects. Programs will also have visibility into inter-dependencies among constituent projects and they are capable of orchestrating the overall execution of change management as changes occur in the projects.
Project
Projects a collection of tasks and activities that must be performed in a planned manner to attain the objectives identified. Projects have a start date and an expected end date. Projects have constituent task lists, called work breakdown structures (WBS) and they have their own organization (called an organizational breakdown structure - OBS). Tasks within the project have inter-dependencies and they have specified deliverables that must be ready within a planned schedule and within a budget. Projects deliver to the program if the project is part of a larger effort.
Publish
Data and metadata related to a project or a deal being matured through a stage-gated process can be “published” for access by other disparate processes. This data can be published only at the toll-gate that punctuates each stage of the process after it has been vetted by the review team at the toll-gate. Published information may be made available selectively for certain processes only as decided by the funnel manager or process owner. It may also be made available generally to any authorized subscriber in the organization as determined by the process owner and the project or deal manager.
Purpose
This terms is used to define goals and objectives as well as to define the act of applying information sourced from one context to meet the requirements of another business context. Used as a verb, (purposed, re-purposed) this is a powerful definition for the process of maturation and re-use of data into information and knowledge.
Responsibility
The word responsibility is used to define loosely it in the sense of authority and accountability as well the goals, which the employee commits to accomplish while in a context.
Roles
Roles are job functions assigned to people when they work in a context. People can assume multiple roles in a typical corporation or in projects where are they assigned. People can also share roles, and people may step into a role for a short period or perform their duties for a long period.
SaaS
Software as a Service is the offering of a collection of software on a hosted site to one or more clients so that they may enjoy the benefits of the software for operation on their private data. In a multi-tenant SaaS, the software is commonly available to all the subscribing clients while their data is kept private in their own data table space.
SDSE
Semantic Data Sourcing and Exchange for finding and converting of studies and trials from any standard to an internal controlled standard and then again to any other standard.
Search
Actively search for information using an explicit string of text to drive the user's query.
Security Classifications
In Orchestra security classification is provided to both people and content security classifications. People are allowed to see content only if their security classifications math. Content security classifications are inherited and they can cause information to be hidden or shared.
Situational Awareness
Situational awareness extends the state of awareness to a specific context since the context itself defines the "situation".
Six Degrees of Separation
A theory in social networks states that any two people in the world can be connected to each by six people.
Skill Pool, Expertise Portfolio
These terms are used to define a portfolio view of the company's expertise profiles. They may be an aggregation of all the employees or representative as in a basket of employee expertise information.
Social, Professional Network
This phrase is used to signify the connectivity of one individual to another through a series of people who are directly known to one or the other individual, or known to a person in the chain of people who could connect the two individuals.
Solo
A companion client for Orchestra that has a smart synchronizer to automatically bring metadata and content of all business contexts that a user is privileged to access
Subscription
Data being published from a process or a context can be subscribed to by authorized members. The subscription can be set up to allow automatics access to new information as and when they become available. Subscription can also be set up for specific data that can trigger other disparate processes that have authorized subscription rights to such data.
Task
Tasks have a local objective and they have people assigned to them to accomplish work that will result in meeting the objective. Tasks require information and material inflows and they deliver material and information to other parts of the project.
Taxonomy
Classification of definitions used to build an understanding of content for the purposes of future discovery by people in an organization.
Toll-gate, Stage-Gate, Phase-Gate
These terms are used to define the steps that punctuate funnel (toll-gated, or stage-gated processes) stages. Toll gates are review points where the projects and opportunities ready for review are submitted and ready for a challenge-response review when a determination is made regarding the readiness of these projects to the next phase.
UBIS
Unified Business Information Systems when describing the software environment; and Unified Business Information Service when listing the capabilities of UBIS. See Appendix 1
Web Services
Web services are services provided by Orchestra or other applications and they are triggered by requests from other applications or the user as part of a workflow or business process or ad hoc. Services provided can include status of information or the information content itself.
Work Breakdown Structure
The WBS is the structured organization of tasks defined for a project and together they form the list of tasks that must completed within the constraints of budgets, schedule, and inter-dependencies.
Workforce Planning
This term is used, in this context, to mean the act of considering future needs of workforce expertise to meet the strategic goals of the company. The process includes a baseline model of the expertise, expertise decay models, attrition models, major scenario planning overlays and models, and strategy driven scenarios for consideration. The resulting analysis provides future expertise needs and the distribution of these by region and other dimensions.