What is a briefing? A briefing is a walk-though style of information delivery that is particularly well suited to a management audience. Briefings are graphic slide show presentations that are generated on request. The user of the briefing simply presses a "Next" button to step through the presentation in the prepared sequence, or can select pages in any order. Subjects for briefings Any project, program, organization or member can be the subject of a briefing. Why are briefings effective? Briefings are inherently more digestible than long reports because they lead the viewer though a logical sequence of information and highlight problems. The briefing generation process pre-analyzes the data to determine what information would be of interest. (E.g., if there is overdue work, then show one or more pages about it, but if there is not any, skip these pages.) Each page of the presentation is a live report that is generated on demand. This means that the briefing pages are themselves interactive documents rather than static text displays. The more advanced user can use this feature to learn more; other users will simply read the pages. Most pages present information in a graphical format such as progress meters, pie charts, and trend diagrams. How do I create a briefing? You can create a briefing by clicking the Briefing Link at the top of every Project, Program, Organization, and Member report. Or you can start from the briefing action on the Observations Navigator. Or, if you are running from the web, you can start from the Briefing links provided on the Observatory Center home page. Once you select the format, the briefing will be prepared by the server and will appear in a few seconds. What can appear in a briefing? Virtually every Query, Visualization, and Report output is accessible in the context of a briefing, but the particular set provided is determined by the script used and the state of entity on which the briefing is based. To further increase flexibility, the briefing can automatically incorporate library pages that have been pre-created by the manager of the entity being reviewed. This can be useful for a project that is in a state of change or just getting underway. A key element of the briefing facility is its extensive use of historical information. Status reports, for example, provide links to all prior status reports. Work and Cost are presented as trend lines. Project History diagrams are included where appropriate. Briefing Scripts The sequence and content of a presentation must be appropriate to the interests of the audience. To achieve this, the briefing system is implemented as an engine controlled by a user selected script. The system contains two standard scripts, one for producing a one page executive summary and the other for generating a full, general purpose briefing. The scripts are assembled as a list of pre-defined functions with very minimal parameters. Approximately 60 pre-defined functions and a collection of 50 pre-defined forms make up the briefing components. These functions are themselves analysis tools that only generate briefing content if there is relevant information to display for the entity. A user may create a new briefing script from a blank sheet or by loading the script for the standard briefing and modifying it to add or remove functions. Once saved, the new script will be available whenever a briefing is initiated. What is included in an Organization or Member Briefing? Organization briefings start by displaying supply vs. demand information, then go on the trends and status reports (if available). They will include skill analysis and a current work picture. And they will include executive summary links for all of their associated members and sub-organizational units. Standard vs. Executive Summary? When you request a briefing you have the choice of using the executive summary format, which is always a single page, or the standard format or one of the custom formats that have been defined at your site (if any). Often, standard briefings will contain links which create executive summaries of members or other projects. Personal Briefing Personal briefings identify all of the projects, programs, and organizations owned by the user. They create a briefing whose pages are each executive summaries of the individual items. Each of these summaries, in turn, has an active link to create a full briefing if the user desires it. Overcommitments for one resource with links to find alternatives