Project PULSE
Project Understanding & Lifecycle Status Engine
Real-time project health monitoring and stakeholder visibility for your modernization initiatives.
What is PULSE?
PULSE is AIM's strategic project oversight layer that transforms your modernization recommendations into an actionable project timeline with real-time health monitoring.
Unlike traditional project management tools that focus on task-level tracking, PULSE provides executive-level visibility into modernization progress, risks, and milestones. It's designed for leadership, IT councils, and external stakeholders who need to understand project health at a glance—without diving into implementation details.
PULSE is NOT a Ticketing System
PULSE is intentionally strategic, not tactical. It doesn't replace Jira, Asana, or Azure DevOps for day-to-day task management. Instead, PULSE provides a high-level project heartbeat that leadership, councils, and external stakeholders can understand at a glance—without getting lost in tickets and sprints.
Core Features
Health Score
A computed 0-100 score reflecting overall project health based on multiple factors:
- Timeline adherence and drift
- Constraint satisfaction
- Risk levels across epics
- Team capacity utilization
Epics & Milestones
Major workstreams derived from AIM recommendations. Each epic tracks:
- Status — Current state of the epic (see below)
- Risk Score (0-10) — Likelihood × impact if it slips
- Value Score (0-10) — How much it matters to outcomes
- Constraints — Dependencies tied to C-codes
Epic Status Definitions:
Designated Lead Workflow
Project Managers or designated leads own milestone sign-offs—keeping PULSE strategic, not tactical.
How it works:
- Team members update status externally (email, Slack, standups)
- Designated Lead synthesizes updates
- Lead attests to milestone completion in PULSE
- Attestation creates audit trail with name & timestamp
Public Embed Dashboard
Share a secure, read-only EKG-style timeline on external websites like city portals or council dashboards.
Embed token expires annually
The embed code contains a time-limited security token that expires after 365 days. If your embedded timeline stops displaying, the token has either expired or been regenerated. Return to the Public Pulse Dashboard in AIM, copy the updated embed code, and re-paste it on your website to restore the embed.
How Epic Scores Are Calculated
Every epic carries three computed signals. Here's exactly where each number comes from.
Risk Score (0–10)
How much structural risk this epic eliminates when completed
AIM's recommendation engine scores every product across six dimensions and persists them as rao_dimensions per recommended component. The risk score is a weighted composite of the four dimensions most predictive of structural risk elimination — sourced directly from those stored scores, not estimated by category.
How secure the replacement product is. A highly-secure replacement signals the existing system had significant security exposure — the primary driver of risk reduction.
Regulatory and GRC coverage of the new product. Strong compliance posture signals the existing system carried material regulatory exposure, which this epic eliminates.
Lower lock-in on the new product means this epic reduces strategic risk — the organisation is not simply trading one dependency for another.
Simpler replacements reduce execution risk. A high-complexity product introduces operational uncertainty that partially offsets the risk reduction benefit.
weighted = security × 0.40
+ compliance × 0.30
+ (100 − vendor_lock_in) × 0.15
+ (100 − operational_complexity) × 0.15
risk_score = clamp(round(weighted ÷ 10), 1, 10)
Value Score (0–10)
How much operational business value this epic delivers when completed
The value score uses the same persisted rao_dimensions but weights the four dimensions most predictive of business value delivered. This is why two epics with similar risk scores can have very different value scores — a security epic and an ERP epic serve fundamentally different organisational purposes.
Proven products deliver reliable, measurable value. An immature product may be technically superior but introduces uncertainty that delays value realisation.
Cost-efficient products deliver direct financial value through lower TCO, reduced licensing overhead, and better resource utilisation.
Lower complexity means faster time-to-value. A complex product delays realising the business benefit — the value exists on paper but takes longer to land.
Compliance coverage removes regulatory friction that can delay or block value delivery. Included at a lower weight — it is a value enabler, not a direct value driver.
weighted = maturity × 0.35
+ cost × 0.35
+ (100 − operational_complexity) × 0.20
+ compliance × 0.10
value_score = clamp(round(weighted ÷ 10), 1, 10)
Story Points (Internal Effort Signal)
An internal measure of implementation effort — not shown in epic cards, used by AIM for agentic analysis
1. Category Base
Each technology category carries a base point value reflecting typical implementation effort. ERP starts at 21 points; CDN at 5 points. These baselines reflect real-world modernisation patterns.
2. Risk Multiplier (±15%)
Higher-risk epics require more validation, testing, and sign-off cycles. A risk score of 10 adds 15% to the base; a risk score of 1 reduces it by 15%.
3. Complexity Multiplier (±25%)
Derived from operational_complexity in rao_dimensions. A complex product requires significantly more configuration, integration work, and change management — this replaces the previous calendar-duration proxy.
base = STORY_POINTS_MAP[category] // 5/8/10/13/21 by role
risk_mult = 1 + ((risk_score − 5) ÷ 5) × 0.15 // ±15%
complex_mult = 1 + ((op_complexity − 50) ÷ 50) × 0.25 // ±25%
story_points = nearest Fibonacci value // 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34
Story points are an internal agentic signal used by AIM to understand implementation effort across your modernisation history. They are not surfaced in epic cards or dashboards because Pulse is a strategic oversight tool, not a sprint planning board. As AIM accumulates delivery data through completed epics, story point accuracy improves automatically.
The EKG Timeline
PULSE displays project progress as an EKG-style heartbeat that pulses and glows as milestones complete.
Getting Started with PULSE
Create an Assessment
Start by creating an AIM assessment for your modernization project. Add systems, constraints, and risks.
Generate Recommendations
Let AIM analyze your environment and produce RAO-scored modernization recommendations.
Launch PULSE
Click the PULSE badge on your assessment to activate project tracking. Recommendations become epics.
Ready to monitor your modernization?
Start your first AIM assessment and unlock PULSE for strategic project visibility.