The primary element that determines a successful outcome within desired schedules and costs is cogent, comprehensive, detailed, verifiable and reliable documentation. This is an area of deep focus in Genesis. Every Project should start with a clear, complete and as possible unambiguous statement of Project Requirement. Genesis allows the Project Requirement to be structured into Chapters, so that it is easier to refer to as the Project develops.
Once the first version of the requirement has been prepared, Genesis allows for the generation of a Word Index from the requirement. As versions of the Project requirement unfold, the Word Index can be regenerated. Words of three characters and less are ignored in building the word index, although this may be configurable. Words that are not important in the context of the project can be placed in the trivial words list. This list is common to all projects in an installation of Genesis (although a specific project may wish to set its own trivial word list). They will subsequently not appear in the word index. Words that are essentially synonyms in the context of the project can be merged, and the word index can be viewed in various orders and contexts. The purpose of the word list is twofold. Attention is drawn to the significance and frequency of occurrence of particular words, and observing the word index provides insight for honing the statement of requirement.
From the word index, significant words can be brought into a Glossary for the project, and their elaboration in the context of the project can be described. Usually, nouns will describe objects and entities, verbs will describe actions and processes. Objects and entities may have or acquire qualities and properties as the project evolves, and as processes occur.
At this point, Genesis offers a platform to elaborate the objects and entities that arise. For each object, it is possible to specify its type (from among some predefined types), and provide details on relevant properties in the context of the project, along with their constraints and evolution over the life cycle of the object. Objects themselves can have simple and complex inter-relationships, and Genesis allows for elaboration of these relationships, and facilities to study them diagrammatically. Usually objects and entities are drawn from the glossary.
The next logical step in devolvement is to describe individual processes. Every process identifies the objects involved – those that contribute information and constraints, those that undergo changes, and those that are created or destroyed. A single process may itself be composed of several micro-processes. These are elaborations of individual actions that are to take place towards realization of the objectives of the project. Processes may define the specific actions required when invoked, and also a set of conditions that should determine whether the process is to occur. In many cases, there may be several tests to be done to check if the process has been correctly specified and further elaborated or developed.
Usually, processes are derived from words contained in the Glossary. This brings continuity from the project requirement to the evolving project development. Genesis requires major processes to be derived from Glossary entries. Sub-processes can then be specified under each major process head. This then evolves into a tree structure that gathers similar or sequential processes in the form of a menu of actions. The Genesis process function displays this menu, so that persons involved with these functions can quickly see the structure of the project evolving, and drill down to inspect the elaboration of each process. Processes should contain information on their own integrity checks.
Processes act or report on objects and entities. They may create new objects, change object properties, or destroy them. They may allow reporting on the state of object sets. The definition of objects of interest and their properties of interest is taken analogous to the design of a database in an Information Technology project. The changes to objects or the objects to be addressed for reports can be specified along with the description of the process. A more formal version of this is implemented in those installations of Genesis devoted to Information Technology projects. However, many other environments may also use the object structure features of Genesis to describe objects, properties and inter-object relationships, and use these in the elaboration of processes.
One important feature in the Genesis documenter menu is an incubator. This is a repository of ideas that occur during the evolution of a project. Synergy believes strongly that ideas are often lost in the evolution of intangible projects. The essence of this feature is to allow enabled individuals to post and receive feedback on ideas that allow them to be explored and brought into the formal areas of the project when they contribute to its aims and objectives.
