A timeline is a retrospective representation of a linear sequence of significant events which have occurred during the accomplishment of some activity. A timetable provides a corresponding, forward-looking series for pre-arranged events, and is often organized as a tabular list. Such timetables are used to plan and track such activities for performing and reporting on future work. Each of the events associated with these timelines and timetables may be comprised of either top-level milestones or more detailed inchstones. Read more »

One of the most challenging aspects of any large endeavor is to manage the processes, people, resources. and commitments associated with portfolios of active and candidate new product development programs. I developed the below graphic to provide an overview of a possible set of data relationships for this situation. It is intended to serve as one view of what these relationships might consist of at a very high level; like any such view, it emphasizes some aspects of the situation, and ignores others. Read more »

Catalysis is a next generation approach for the architectural documentation and systematic business-driven development of component-based systems, based on the industry standard Unified Modeling Language (UML). In development and application since 1992, it has been used by Fortune 500 companies in applications as diverse as finance, telecommunication, insurance, manufacturing, embedded systems, process control, flight simulation, travel and transportation, and systems management. Catalysis is a non-proprietary method supported by tools and related products and services from several companies.