Requirements Without concise, clear, focused communications and regular status reports between management, designers, developers, testers, quality assurance, configuration management, stakeholders, and end-users, programs are sure to fail. Up-to-date status enables an organization’s staff and management to achieve on-time delivery within their budgetary constraints that satisfy all of the requirements. 24/7 Process, Product, Project Status The project health (cost and schedule) for processes, products, projects, and issues are displayed in chronological start date order and ranking order (how critical the task) within start date. The Optimize product uses the industry popular management performance indices for cost (CPI – Cost Performance Index) and schedule (SPI – Schedule Performance Index) to display the organization’s health for processes, products, and projects. The information is displayed numerically and in graph form using a signal metaphor. Diagnostic and Informative Messages The Optimize product, during end-of-business, generates messages when it estimates a deliverable or milestone that will be more than five days late. Most messages are diagnostic, reporting that the user has entered an illegal or not-recommended value. When using the Optimize product, a user receives diagnostic messages to help ensure their inputs or updates are correct. The Optimize product generates informative messages to help assure the user’s inputs are valid. The following are a few examples: A Process, Product, or Project Manager is not assigned. A Process, Product, or Project Portfolio Manager is not assigned. A requirement is ambiguous. A requirement’s cost exceeds the current baseline’s projected cost. A scheduled low-level task does not have a labor category assigned. A scheduled low-level task has a missing inventory item. A scheduled low-level task has no user available for the required labor category. A scheduled low-level task is projected to be completed beyond its estimated scheduled date. A user does not have a supervisor assigned. A user does not have a user type specified. A user does not have a labor category specified A user does not have a cell phone specified. A user has extra hours not specified for an allocation period. A user is deleted or added to the system. Health Trend Lines A user can create a graphic trend line display for the last twenty (days, weeks, months) for CPI or SPI. This trend line allows management to notice trends relative to the cost or schedule of a process, product, or project.