From the beginning, it was clear that interconnectedness is a vital factor in usage of software. The more closely tied a piece of software is to the business processes, the more likely it is to be adequately used, and to not be abandoned. Therefore, I prioritized integration with as many other softwares commonly used in Boeing practice. We identified five commonly used programs or formats, all of which had an API or open-source readability that we could access.
The result of this effort was the Work tab. For every company object, such as projects, aircraft programs, or organizational taxons, the platform could tap into the workflows involved. This included viewing the CAD files as well discussions relating to that object. The Work tab never reached the level of complexity I had envisioned, but it was a start.
It was also clear that there were many undiscovered data objects in the company that would need to be tracked by the Portfolio Management Platform, but it was futile to attempt to track them all down in the time we had available. In any case, with the rate of change, new structures would emerge that we could not have anticipated. To account for this, we created a markdown language that was simple enough for minimally technical personnel to use that could create entirely new formats of object.
Worked to expand the reach of our product
Earlier in the project, when I mapped out the company's processes, I identified prioritization of business and technological goals as a prime target for digital capture into our platform. Again, in pursuit of the goal of greater integration into the company's workflows, we wanted a product that would not just reflect the data, but be able to alter it. We made some headway designing a planning utility, but it never made it into production.