If you have many projects within one one program or organization your workflow for using DoView can be as follows:

 

1.Develop high-level outcomes diagrams (outcomes models)

A set of high level outcome diagrams could be build by senior management and those doing strategic planning (let's call them the Strategic Planners for the sake of the discussion here) for your overall program or organization. In addition to the high level outcomes diagrams in this model, there should also be a diagram listing all of the projects within the program or organization. The project names can just be entered as steps (you may like to put '(P)' in front of them so you can recognize them as steps later on. You can fit thirty or so of these onto a single compact diagram (page) and can include more than one page if you have more than thirty projects. This Program or Organization-Wide High-Level Outcomes Diagram (Model) which includes the high-level outcomes diagram and also  the project should be held and maintained in a single DoView file by one person in management or planning (e.g the Strategic Planner). You should think of it as being like a software spreadsheet, there needs to be someone who holds the master copy to make sure that it is kept up-to-date and maintains its integrity. This Program or Organization-Wide High-Level Outcomes model can be turned into a web page model (File > Create Web Page Model) and put up on your organization's intranet or on the internet (see Section: Web page models (creating).

 

2. Individual project DoView models

Each project team then develops its own DoView model which just contains diagrams at the project level (typically this might be 4 or so pages - perhaps more). The diagrams for each project can be held in separate DoView files. This file should be held and maintained by someone in the individual project team - let's call them the Project Team DoView File Holder. Each project set of outcomes diagrams can be turned into a web page model (File > Create Web Page Model) and put up on your organization's intranet or on the internet (see Section: Web page models (creating). This project-level model should be held by someone who we can call here the Project Team DoView File Holder.

 

3. Linking projects to high-level outcomes

When thinking about the high level program or organization-wide outcomes each project is contributing to, these should be mapped onto the Program or Organization-Wide High Level Outcomes diagram. This can be done in various ways. The first option is for the Strategic Planner to meet with each project team and in such meetings link the particular project to high level outcomes within the DoView file held by the Strategic Planner (1). This approach has the advantage that the Strategic Planner can query the project team to make sure that they they are only showing links to high-level outcomes which can be justified. The second option, is for the Strategic Planner to create a web page model which they can put on the organization's intranet or the internet. If there are a number of steps and outcomes, they could be numbered  and the individual project teams would just need to let the Strategic Planner know which steps and outcomes their project is aiming to influence.  A third option is for the Strategic Planner to just email project teams a PDF file of the Program or Organization-Wide High Level Outcomes model (DoView has built in support for printing to PDF), they could print it out and simply mark with pen those outcomes in the model their project is contributing to. They could then fax this marked-up printout to the Strategic Planner who could then enter it into the master copy of the DoView file which contains the Program or Organization-Wide High Level Outcomes diagram. The fourth option is for the Strategic Planner to email out the Program or Organization-Wide High Level Outcomes model to someone in the project team who is familiar with using DoView and get them to put in the links (e.g. the Project Team DoView File Holder) as long as they are confident that they will not introduce mistakes into the master file.

 

Once the Strategic Planner has the master file, with the programs linked to high-level outcomes, they could record in each step box for each high-level outcome the number of projects which link to it. This provides a visual way of seeing how program or organizational projects map onto high level outcomes. If they have put '(P)' in front of each project, when they do a right-click on an outcome and select This is the result of they will be able to see the list of all project which it is believed will influence this outcome. This approach can be used when doing strategic planning to identify outcome areas which few,  or no, projects may be aimed at.

 

4. At any stage either the Strategic Planner or the Project Team DoView File Holder can circulate copies of their DoView file to anyone else (e.g. because some other part of the organization wants to see how they have laid out steps and outcomes for a particular project). However, these would always just be copies of the master file and it should be made clear to everyone that the Strategic Planner or the individual Project Team DoView File Holders are the ones who hold the master copies of the files. Any amendments which have to be made to these files would all go through either the Strategic Planner or the individual Project Team DoView File Holders so as to make sure that the master copies of the files are always kept up-to-date. One of the easiest and safest ways of letting anyone get hold of a copy of a DoView file is to create a web page model and select the option to include a copy of the original DoView file in the model and put the web page model up on an intranet or the internet. Then for anyone who has DoView installed on their computer all they need to do is click on the Download the DoView file of this model in the Option bar at the bottom of the web page model and a copy of the file will open in DoView on their computer. See the Section: Web page models (creating).

 

[1] It is possible to do this remotely using an internet service which lets project team members view the Strategic Planner's  screen showing them making the links on their copy of DoView in the course of a conference call (one such service is called Glance - www.glance.net, it can also now be done on some versions of Skype).