Community Forum – Project Nomenclature

Do you have a standardized way of naming projects?

We would like to have a standardized way to name projects that we are working on in R&D.  Today, a project can begin with a name that is given during early research and change as the project gets closer to commercialization.  Later, the name change results in confusion when looking for information on the project.  Has anyone developed a nomenclature for projects?  – Steve Repinec, Director R&D – Product Lifecycle Management, Colgate-Palmolive Company

Community Responses

Bruce W. Janda, Forming Product Business Leader & Forming Global Innovation Leader, AstenJohnson
I have had experience with project naming from both the perspectives of an R&D and Marketing Leader.  Organizations I participated in have used project names that have ranged from abstract to targeting marketing names for commercialized products.   The objective of project names is to organize documentation, activity, and costing by project and team.  Many times the objective also includes secrecy to prevent premature disclosure and control marketing planning for a new product launch.

1. Abstract code numbers and letters – nice for security but terrible for actual use by project team for anything but filling and time sheets.  If they don’t remember it, they won’t use it.
2. Affectionate or pet names that have meaning to the organization and or the team.  The security problem is the name means something motivational as it fits the strategy or product in some way.  The affectionate name is certainly motivational but tends to develop a life of its own restricting scope and goal changes.   Many products can end up being called by their pet project name instead of proper brand name.
3. Acronyms whose letters serve as a pneumonic to recall.  Unfortunately, if the letters mean something, suppliers, customers, and competition will figure it out quickly.  This has caused problems for me.  Anything that means something to you will also be meaningful to the rest of your industry sector.
4. Marketing Brand Name First – then develop product.  I have been guilty of this approach.  The problem is after a tough development cycle where the bugs were finally worked out, every bad thing from the first prototype still hangs over the perfected product by name association.
5. Project names based on themes.  I have used names for all projects in a year or business based on a theme such as astronomy or music composers and artists.  These names do not correlate to the attributes of the project strategy or product but give the team and organization something they can remember and apply.  Works to have a T-shirt or team song without security risks.  The name is never assumed to be the product name going forward so it does not constrain marketing.

Ted Rekart, HSE Manager/RMR, Air Liquide
Each experiment (project)  is given a unique number YYYY-NNN. where YYY is the year the project is started, NNN is a sequential number. Within that project all documents are numbered as YYYY-NNN-ZZZ-Title (R)  where ZZZ = document type, Title is the title of the project and R is the revision number of the project document.  The number is assigned to the initiating paperwork for the risk management process and is carried through the entire project until it is commercialized or disassembled.  All documentation is related to the risk management paperwork, being HSE risks, experiment design/specifications, financial risks, operating procedures, chemicals use and disposal, equipment drawings, P&ID’s, drawings, work permits, etc.  For example, 2010-146-ESP-Gas Sparging of Essential Oils (2) would be revision 2 of the experiment specification (ESP) for the experiment number 2010-146 entitled “Gas Sparging of Essential Oils”.

Ray Baron, Engineer/Scientist, Advanced Manufacturing Research & Development, Boeing Research and Technology
We have found that the best way to name something is based on the specific process it does.  This is the best way because it serves the end user and is not in engineeringeze.  However, if the machine or process is targeted for a particular target family then the last 2 words or letters of a 4 letter anronym can be the same.  For example, we use DS for drilling systems and differentiate between the unique drilling systems based on specific work or part it is producing and this becomes the first letters in the acronym.

End users are going to call the machine what they want and the OEM should accommodate.  So, to answer your question, it would be beneficial to associate old nomencaltures to the end users new names electronically for traceability etc…. within the OEM’s documetation, however, the old names should always be transparent to the end users documentation.  Spoken like an end user,
 

Albert Johnson, IRI Emeritus Member
We numbered them for cost accounting reasons, but did not worry too much about naming them except if we needed a name that could be used in casual conversation without disclosing the subject.  For instance, a project to create a new kind of video display might get named Signat or Seurat, an allusion to the pixels on a video display corresponding to the points in a pointillist drawing or painting. The underlying number for cost accounting would be kept consistent so that later we can reckon development costs for a technology or family of technologies depending on how the project(s) evolve. Our cost accounting system allowed for sub-codes off of a project code.  And we have a couple people in “strategic planning and innovation management” that support project accounting and administration. They issue and track project numbers.  R&D division controller is part of that group – reports both to corporate finance (vp finance/COO) and R&D leadership (vp R&D operations/CTO). 

So for your situation I would not worry so much about the given name as I would modifying the project numbering scheme so that the project phases are under one code – then you can manage the project information from the controllers’ office and not worry about evolution of the given names.  It’s a filing exercise.  Let the people who are good at filing have the tools to do that. On project initiation give the project a base number and a suffix code.  As the project evolves keep the base number and change the suffix.  If you could tell me more about how your administration is structured I could make stronger recommendation as to how to accomplish this or how to morph the organization to create a workable solution.   In order to think strategically about technology platforms and related projects it’s a no brainer that you need to fix this.