Progress at six months

With a comprehensive specification for the KnowledgePoint platform in place, based on extensive stakeholder feedback, the HIF KnowledgePoint project has reached the six month mark.  This update comes as we are about to embark on the build phase of the project.

In my previous blog post, I reviewed the first two scoping stages.  Since then, we have completed our functional specification (Stage 3) and are about to begin the construction of a working prototype (Stage 4).

A quick recap on our project: KnowledgePoint is intended to make essential technical support easier to access and to allow providers to collaborate and pool expertise. To achieve this, we are creating a web-based tool that will provide better ways for exchanging and capturing knowledge and experience.  Our project seeks to invent a suitable process and to test it in a working prototype.

Stage 3: Design and specification

Project time has so far been split evenly between research in Stages 1 and 2, and creating the design and specification in Stage 3.  The context of the project is the invention phase of an innovation, and the inspiration and creativity that this implies were particularly vital for this third stage.

For inspiration, we surveyed some of the key developments in web-based software that best matched the feedback we had received from stakeholders.  We picked the elements that fitted best, and described additional elements that we thought we needed.  We also built an early mock-up of what such a site might look like.  These allowed us to visualise what we wanted to achieve in the end, and provided a laboratory for our ideas before formalising them in a full specification.

After exploring the possibilities, embodying these ideas in a solid specification was the next challenge.  Each one of the five organisations that constitute the core working group provided valuable input into the specification.  The group worked to create a consistent specification that could meet the assorted aims without comprising the unity of the design.  The specification that has arisen is solid and it’s great to see that the different organisations in the group have created a sinlge way forward for providing a great TSS tool.

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The build stage will begin within the next ten days, which we are expecting to approach in a series of releases that will allow us to test and review the platform in an iterative process.

This will mark the start of a key phase of KnowledgePoint, and I look forward to providing updates on the new releases over the coming weeks.

Tim Kent – Project Manager, KnowledgePoint