Projects
I organize my projects following the ISO/IEC/IEEE 15288:2023 Generic Life Cycle model for project lifecycles. The Model defines the following life cycle stages for a project:
- Concept
- Development
- Production
- Utilization
- Support
- Retirement
To categorize my projects I maintain six Project Categories based on these Life Cycle Stages. My Categories differ slightly from the ISO model (see Explanation below). Each category has its own webpage which lists projects in that category:
- Unrealizable Concepts: ideas which are not realizable.
- Pre-Concept: ideas which may later enter the Concept stage.
- Concept: projects with goals under development; still potentially unfeasible.
- Development: projects I’m still working on but which haven’t achieved suitable goals.
- Utilization: projects which are completed to a suitable degree.
- Suspended: projects which I started but have decided not to finish.
Within these categories I enumerate fields: software, mechanical, mechatronic, academic, and the lesser used chemistry, food, novels, movie scenes, and sports.
1. Project Categories Explanation
Categorizing projects, or systems, by Life Cycle Stage is non-trivial because of three nuances:
- Stages can overlap in time
- Subsystems can simultaneously occupy different Stages
- A project can return to an earlier Stage
The nuances could, in theory, be accomodated by a tailored visualization system. But this requires defining and following some reference model for describing project stages and accommodating these nuances. I’m not interested in this.
Fortunately, forgoing a tailored visualization system and reference model actually doesn’t have too much impact. Why? My projects happen to inherently avoid the nuances:
- I define my stages so they’re mutually exclusive. See below. This is how I work in real life, so the mapping works.
- I rarely return projects to earlier stages.
- I consider any publically available project to occupy the ISO Support stage, so we don’t need a separate page for Support. Rather we just merge this into my Utilization category.
- I consider “retired” projects as in utilization, since if I mention it on my website, it has at least one purpose, which is for others to see that I’ve done it.
1.1. Formal Definitions of Project Categories
Idea: a coherent abstract thought for a project.
Project: an idea with at least one physical or digital representation or artifact.
- Unrealizable Concepts: ideas which are not realizable for one reason or another, e.g. my lack of knowledge, lack of resources, or physical infeasibility.
- Pre-Concept: ideas for realizable projects.
- Concept: projects whose goals are still being fully determined.
- Development: projects that have not yet achieved suitable goals and on which I am currently working.
- Utilization: have been completed to a suitable degree and are in use by me, or could conceivably be used by someone else.
- Suspended: were begun but were suspended for one reason or another.