To support specific contract objectives and ensure project success, Humanproof subject matter experts are available to provide a variety of facilitation services, which are described below:

Process Design: Efficient Process Design Using Key Decisions 

Decision-making is crucial to any process.  A sound understanding of the decision-making needs of the process is key to efficient process design.  Developing such understanding is how Humanproof does process design.  Humanproof facilitates discussions that allow leaders, managers, and project leads to define and characterize the needed decisions and structure these decisions to guide process design.

Building an Efficient Project Plan and Schedule

A project plan is most efficient when it is founded on the key decisions that must be made to achieve the goal.  However, most plans are not constructed in this manner.  Typically, one makes a list of required (or likely) activities and organizes it into a sensible schedule, adding as many details and progress metrics as desired.  But using this approach to build schedules has drawbacks.  Some activities that seem reasonable may not be necessary.  A way of limiting candidate activities to those essential for completing the job is required.  Building the plan around key decisions that need to be made, marking essential decision milestones, ensures a most efficient plan.  

At Humanproof we build the plan around the decisions needed to complete the job. Once these decisions have been captured and precedence relationships established, an efficient project plan may be constructed with activities essential to decision milestones.  We can also ensure that the plan has realistic timetables, increasing the probability of project success.

Structured Brainstorming

Using a model called Decision Oriented Systems Engineering (DOSE), Humanproof can work with your key project members to systematically map the decision landscape and, drawing on SME input, identify perceived issues and concerns requiring attention.

Focused Knowledge Engineering Sessions

Knowledge Engineering (KE) is a discipline that focuses on capturing and integrating knowledge into practical and highly usable information systems, in order to solve complex problems requiring a high level of human expertise.  Focused KE sessions can help:

  • Assess the problem
  • Develop a knowledge-based system shell or structure
  • Acquire and structure related information, knowledge and specific preferences
  • Implement structured information into knowledge bases
  • Test and validate the inserted knowledge
  • Integrate and maintain the system
  • Revise and evaluate the system as necessary

Humanproof has specialized expertise to facilitate KE challenges concerning business development, and design for innovation.

Set Based Design and Implementation

Set-Based Design (SBD) is a method that requires a shift in how one thinks about and manages the design process.  The Set-Based Design paradigm replaces the more traditional point based design construction with design discovery, through a systematic elimination of inferior or infeasible designs. In SBD, an inferior design is any design that has been determined less effective to another in a key attribute.  Assessments involving tradeoffs, i.e., having a mix of inferior and superior attributes, are delayed as long as possible.  SBD allows more of the design effort to proceed concurrently, deferring detailed specification decisions until tradeoffs are more fully understood.  Humanproof is fully equipped to help your organization structure a design challenge for a Set-Based Design Implementation, with progress tracking metrics to ensure design convergence within schedule constraints.

Multi-Attribute Utility Analysis (MAUA)

Multi-Attribute Utility Analysis (MAUA) is an approach for facilitating value-focused thinking and decision-making. It is especially useful for dealing with Human Factors-associated issues, because it accommodates a full mix of subjective and objective attributes.  When highly supportive commercial tools are used, such an analysis can be conducted quite efficiently.   When the rigor of attribute derivation, definition, and utility analysis are conducted in a manner consistent with the mathematical precepts of MAUA, the results can be quite valuable and insightful.  Humanproof professionals have considerable experience both in leading such analyses with subject matter input, and in coaching others responsible for executing MAUA model development and implementation.