Establish an Integrated Work Environment

An integrated work environment includes the physical infrastructure (e.g., facilities, tools, equipment, and support needed to effectively use them) that people need to perform their jobs effectively. Properly functioning environments help people communicate clearly and efficiently about the product, processes, people needs, and organization. An integrated work environment helps integrate the business and technical functions and the interfaces among teams, projects, and organizations.

The integrated work environment must accommodate both collocated and distributed integrated teams as required. Two-way communications media should be easily accessible by all relevant stakeholders.

Encouraging open dialogue by providing communication mechanisms enables everyone to effectively engage in and contribute to information sharing. Appropriate mechanisms might include meeting rooms, email, fax, FTP or Web sites, video teleconferencing capabilities, and others depending on the organization’s culture and its project and integrated team preferences for efficient and effective information sharing. The types of information needed, which agents (projects, integrated teams, or individuals), and how many of them produce, own, and need that information should be considered in deciding the mechanisms to be used.

Integrated communication tool sets reduce time spent converting information from one medium or platform to another, and correcting transcriptions or misunderstandings when people do the conversions. Requirements for product and process information usability throughout the life of the product are important characteristics to consider in the selection of information-exchange tools. In an IPPD environment, it is particularly important that the tools for designing and developing the product-related life-cycle processes are integrated with the tools for designing and developing the product and product components.

Integrated work environments are developed with the same, or greater, rigor as that used to develop a specific product or service. Integrated work environments are capital assets that are often expensive, have unique implementations, are irreversible (their implementation can destroy or make unusable the assets being replaced), and whose modification disrupts ongoing activities. The rigor appropriate to the development should be matched to the magnitude of the needs to be resolved and the deployment risks.

• Determine requirements for the integrated work environment. Requirements for the integrated work environment are typically based on:
  • The organization’s set of standard processes
  • The objectives of the organization articulated in the organization’s shared vision
  • The needs associated with developing, maintaining, and delivering the products and services of the organization
• Regularly evaluate the effectiveness of the existing environment and forecast the need for additional, upgraded, or new tools or integrated work environment components.
• Maintain awareness of current and emerging technologies, tools, and resources that are related to the integrated work environment.

  Maintaining awareness may be accomplished through industry journals, professional societies, conferences, trade shows, or benchmarking. Examples of technologies, tools, and resources include:

  • Computing resources and software productivity tools
  • Communications systems, tools, and resources
  • Communication tools (email, telephone, databases, archives, etc.)
  • Manufacturing and production facilities
  • Engineering or simulation tools
  • Proprietary engineering tools
  • Prototyping or production equipment
  • Work space
  • Office equipment and supplies
  • Raw or stock input materials
  • Transportation resources
  • “Hotlines” and “help desks”
  • Information brokerage services
  • Support staff and/or services
  • Information-technology capabilities
  • Process enactment and management tools
• Plan, design, and implement an integrated work environment. The critical aspects of the work environment are, like any other system, requirements driven. Work environment functionality (stimulated by customer needs and requirements) is explored with the same rigor as any other system development. Are the performance improvements (for example, timely interoperable communications, safety, security, maintainability) worth the costs (for example, capital outlays, training, support structure, disassembly and disposal of existing environments, performance and maintenance of the environment) and risks (for example, work flow and project disruptions)? Requirements are developed for the duration of the work environment and address, as appropriate, the three different cases for work environment improvements: developing a new environment, migrating an existing environment to new capabilities, and maintaining awareness of new and evolving technologies to exploit improvement opportunities. As required, the integrated work environment or some of its components can be developed in house or acquired from external sources.
• Provide ongoing maintenance and operational support for the integrated work environment. Maintenance and support of the integrated work environment can be accomplished either with capabilities found inside the organization or hired from outside the organization. Examples of maintenance and support methods include:
  • Hiring people to perform the maintenance and support
  • Training people to perform the maintenance and support
  • Contracting the maintenance and support
  • Developing expert users for selected automation tools
• Monitor and evaluate the adequacy of the integrated work environment to satisfy user needs. Refer to the Project Monitoring and Control process area for more information about practices for monitoring and controlling the work environment. The work environment should be monitored throughout its existence to ascertain if, and when, its performance degrades below that expected (or specified) as well as to identify opportunities for improvements. The key operating characteristics of the integrated work environment should be identified. The key operating characteristics are those performance, product, and process characteristics that can be measured and compared against expected capabilities of the integrated work environment. End users should be surveyed to determine the adequacy of the current environment and to identify potential improvements. Changes should be planned and implemented based on the analysis of usage and performance data and on identified real and potential problems.
• Revise the integrated work environment as necessary, by adding, deleting, or replacing components.