Editor's Note: This document is composed of excerpts from Cyber Conn Executive Decision System, The Concept, by Bill Blackburn and Guy Groves. Over the past 16 years, the term "Cyber Conn" has morphed into "CyberCon", which is a registered trademark of iterations, L.L.C.. The former terms has been replaced with the later in the text below.

Introduction:

Part of the challenge of developing human capital is the need to develop information systems that can help us extend the power of our minds: not only the ability to reason analytically, but the ability to use intuitive processes as well. Ultimately, we need an intelligent partnership between human beings and the information systems that support their work, play, and personal growth.

The CyberCon Executive System is a synthesis of seven component areas, that when pulled together, form the synergy of the Taylor Process. The components are: 1. Body of Knowledge, 2. Process Facilitation, 3. Educational Programs, 4. Technical Systems, 5. Environments, 6. Project Management, 7. Venture Management. The functioning of the CyberCon Executive System depends on all the components working together. None can exist alone and have a full expression of the system. This is not to say that each component must function at the same level of sophistication. The components will, in fact, co-exist while each is at a different level of completion and sophistication. The system itself is subject to the same "rules" of creativity and evolution, as are the projects and processes it manages.

The purpose of the CyberCon Executive System is to facilitate the creative process with special emphasis on supporting thought about the future and planning courses of action that respond to and shape that future.

The Executive Decision System (EDS) is an idea manager as well as a planning and project manager. The hub of the system is a Knowledgebase designed to provide information to the user, information that is relevant to the task at hand, but that also provides gateways to further exploration of the implications of that task. The knowledgebase is designed to support the user's creative process in dealing with any topic. Further, it is designed to act as a "knowledge capture" mechanism through its interaction with the person using it.

Linked to the Knowledgebase are a series of modules. Their main function is to allow the user to explore the relationships between ideas about how the future might unfold and the creation of practical plans to guide action into that future. These modules bring together three of the principle Taylor knowledge technologies: the Scenario; the Strategic Plan and its graphic manifestation, the AND MAP; and the Time and Task Management System. The EDS also provides a pathway to the corporate knowledgebase and to other application packages that support the creative process, such as word-processing, spreadsheet, graphics and computer aided design.

The CyberCon Executive Decision System is composed of seven major modules. At the hub of the system is the Knowledgebase, the main database of information resources. The Knowledgebase Interface is the shell that protects the database and provides the tools to access the data directly or through applications. Outside of this module are the six "principle application" modules of the system. These are Data Management, General Applications, CyberCon Tools, Scenario, Strategic Plan, and Time and Task Management modules. Together they form an integrated environment for the creative exploration of ideas about the future. They also provide the means of programing and managing courses of action to provide the transition, for the corporation or organizations between the present and the future. Finally, the system also provides an intelligent link with the corporate past, which it builds upon by documenting corporate actions as they unfold. The system is, therefore, a historian of actions, providing the chronicle as events occur.

Description of the Modules

Knowledgebase Module - The Knowledgebase and its interface contain the information upon which the six "applications" draw. The Knowledgebase also provides the means of entering and retrieving general information to and from the system. Finally, it provides a means of exploring and creating new ideas, using the creative process and the black box models. The Knowledgebase interface will link the specific work modules, called the principle applications, with the Knowledgebase and application programs that reside "outside" the EDS. It will provide the means of manipulating data so that it is compatible with the needs of the work modules and the outside application programs.

Ultimately, the Knowledgebase interface will manage the expert system aspects of the EDS. For example, in a full expert system implementation, when a particular user signs on to work with a module, the system will call up specific parts of the tool kit that the user profile indicates the user prefers to use. The system might also make suggestions on investigative strategies the user might like to pursue, basing the suggestions on the user's levels of expertise.

Data Management Module

General Applications Module

Cyber-Conn Tools Module - This module contains routines that are used in common by the other work modules. For example, statistical analysis of data will be needed in each of the main work modules. When needed it will be called from the tool kit, so that it will not be necessary to have a complete set of code to do statistical work resident within all three of the planning modules.

Scenario Module (planning module) - This module will facilitate the formulation of ideas about the future. A structured investigation into the past could also be accomplished using this module. Key features will include: 1. the support of several formal methodologies such as morphological and cross-impact analysis, with which the structure of postulated events may be developed and/or analyzed, 2. the ability to access information in the knowledgebase that pertains to an event through a keyword query, 3. the ability to compare different scenarios and to analyze the implications of variations between the types of events projected, and variations in the timing of those events.

The Scenario Module is designed to facilitate the various creative process used by a planner in anticipating how events might unfold through time. Constructing a scenario or group of scenarios about events that will affect our actions constitutes an appropriate starting point in devising a plan of action for the future. The plan will allow us to take advantage of future opportunities and to avoid pitfalls. The Scenario Module is intended to support and enhance the intuitive processes inherent in the act of building a scenario and to provide structured and rigorous approaches to forecasting future events. The module provides structured analytic methods for examining similarities and differences between scenarios, and for using this information to revise the event forecasts within a given scenario. Finally this module allows the events forecast in the scenario to be linked directly to elements in the strategic plan and to show the effects that a change in the scenario event has on the strategic plan action, or vice versa. This is accomplished by identifying key events within the scenario, which will eventually be linked to the goals and objectives in the strategic plan.

Strategic Plan (planning module) - This module will facilitate the formulation, testing, and maintenance of broad plans of action. The AND MAP technology will be supported in PERT/CPM or decision network form. Formulation of goals and objectives as well as specific activities within the plan will be linked to scenario events that affect them. Likewise, events within a plan are linked to specific action within the time and task management system associated with the plan. Through this linkage, the effects of a change in any one of the modules on the other modules will be recorded. Documents that support or explain the plan, or specific actions within the plan, can be retrieved from the knowledgebase. The module will support "what if" computations on a plan or group of alternative plans. The development and alteration of AND maps will be graphically and analytically supported.

The purpose of the Strategic Plan Module is to aid the manager in developing a plan or plans of action based on events formulated in the Scenario Module. The plan that is developed will serve as the main guidance and control tool for the individuals working under the plan. It is the fulcrum that balances the future that the organization sees for itself as expressed in the Corporate Scenario with the need to organize day to day, indeed in some cases hour to hour, activities to achieve the organizational future. This module provides the blueprint for action that the organization will take to achieve its goals and provides the structure upon which the day to day flow of activities (the Time and Task Module) will be built.

Time and Task Management (planning module) - This module will translate the intent of the strategic plan into a day to day scheduling of actions implementing the plan. Specific work packages will be broken out showing team membership, the responsible manager, time lines, etc. the rate of completion of various work packages and specific actions will be fed back to the strategic plan to monitor plan progress. Possession of a variety of reporting capabilities will be a key feature of both the Strategic Plan and the Time and Task Management modules.

The Time and Task Management Module uses the activities defined in the Strategic Plan as a framework for creating a day to day accounting of responsibilities to ensure the plan's activities are successfully carried out on schedule. This module provides a more detailed breakout of activities needed to implement the plan. It also organizes these activities from the perspective of the people who will have to carry out the work. This detailed scheduling of resources provides day to day operational control over the implementation of the plan, as well as a mechanism for scheduling activities and monitoring progress. The module can show managers where adjustments are needed in either the plan or the schedule of activities . Corrective action can be taken if plan activities have fallen behind; the extra time exploited if activities are ahead of schedule. The module also acts as the coordinating mechanism for scheduling meetings, space, personnel, and cash resources.

The Strategic Plan shows the activities in the plan from an overall work flow point of view. The time and Task Management system shows activities from a day to day point of view. The personal time manager sub-module details hour to hour operations. Another difference is that the Strategic Plan focuses on major activities that need to be completed. The Time and Task module's perspective is that of resources: that is, staff and tools required to carry out an activity, and the time span needed for completion. The system will be able to display a variety of tables showing an individual's or a team's relationship to activities in the plan, work packages, or daily actions.

In addition to its scheduling role, the Time and Task Management system acts as a record keeper. The module will keep track of how long a given action actually took, as compared to how long it was expected to take. It will also track the actual expenditure of cash and other resources, in addition to the estimated expenditure. Comparison of these numbers provides the raw data needed to refine the models of activities in the Strategic Plan Activity Library.

The system will alert the responsible parties if a particular action critical to the completion of the activity is not performed on time. This allows corrective action to be taken. Conversely, if an action is completed ahead of schedule, responsible parties are alerted so the opportunity created by this good fortune can be exploited. (Here an activity is defined as a task, event, or cusp in the strategic plan, and an action as an action or group of actions taken by personnel in order to accomplish a work package.)

The Planning Modules, i.e., Scenario, Strategic Plan, and the Time and Task Management modules, are designed to support a complete planning process. This process can be described in simplified fashion in the following model:

1. define problems and opportunities

2. describe the problems and opportunities in systems terms

3. define goals and objectives to deal with the problems and opportunities

4. define performance specifications to implement the goals and objectives

5. define resources and constraints to accomplish the goals and objectives

6. define the plan of action

7. create work packages to implement the plan

8. create a task management system to control and track work

9. feed back changes in organizational goals and objectives and in resource or constraints to the plan and the task management system

10. feed back changes in the plan's schedule to organizational goals and objectives

Each of the above steps in the planning process is related to one of the EDS planning modules. The following table shows this relationship.

Naturally, the planning process is not as linear as it is depicted in this simple model. In reality, the planning process and particularly step 6, the plan formation stage, is a design process with all the recursiveness, trial, and goal seeking intellectual activity this entails. Nonetheless, this simplified model helps to focus attention on key aspects of the process that the planning modules must address.