Award Number ACI-1547611

Extended Developer Support All Hands

Meeting

March 15th, 2017

Extended Developer Support• We are programmers, designers, architects,

hackers, problem solvers, engineers, makers, advisors, gurus, etc.

• We help create new gateways • We help improve existing gateways

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Example EDS Consultations

• Use an existing framework like HUBzero, Agave, Apache Airavata, Galaxy, Jupyter, etc to create a new gateway.

• Help a client make technology choices for building a gateway

• Help a client improve an existing gateway • This may include technologies that you are not familiar

with.

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What We Don’t Do: All the work

• EDS consultations are time and effort limited. • Consultations should be about 6-12 months and

about 25% of your effort, on average• The client must be involved at all steps, must be

able to use what we’ve done after the consultation is over.

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The EDS Process

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Step 1: Clients Request Support

• http://sciencegateways.org/services/gateway-services-request-form/

• If you know of any potential SGCI clients, send them here.

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Step 2: The Initial Interview

• Marlon conducts these.• Goal is to understand the project and its

requirements• What are the major deliverables?• What is the timeline?• Is the client ready for support?

• All consultations have a Google Drive folder• Notes from initial and follow up interviews• Copy of the work plan template

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Step 3: Assign a Consultant

• Sometimes this is obvious• Agave projects go to Agave developers, for example• If you recruit a project, you will be assigned to it.• Load balancing across EDS consultants

• Sometimes it is not obvious• I will post these to the EDS staff list for volunteers.

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Step 4: Hand Off Interview

• The consultant conduct a second interview with the client• I attend to help bridge the interviews.

• In some cases, this can be skipped.

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Step 5: Work Plan

• More about this in a moment• All projects should complete a work plan within

2-4 weeks.• Work plans should last 6 months with possible 6

month extensions.

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Step 6: Work

• Transfer the milestones from your work plan into Jira

• Update milestones in Jira each month

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Step 7: Stop Working

• All consultations come to an end after 6-12 months.

• Submit a brief final report• Nancy Wilkins-Diehr will conduct exit interviews.• Work can also end prematurely

• We couldn’t articulate a work plan• The consultation just didn’t work out• Other causes: tell me

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How We Are Judged

• How many consultations have we conducted?• Were we successful?

• Short term: did we accomplish the main deliverables?• Long term: is the gateway sustained? Growing?

• Are there opportunities for more in-depth, funded work?

• Did we get referrals?

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The Work Plan

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Work Plan Template

• https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aVmctdnmE_tdXA1Z5IzfO52gvPOoS0Mf3HeHzRDNEUw/edit

• I will copy this into each consultation folder in Google Drive for you and the client to edit.

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Work Plan Section: Deliverables

• Each project should have 1-3 concrete deliverables.

• These are specific things that the consultation will accomplish in 6-12 months.

• We will identify these in the first interviews.• Inability to do this is a red flag

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Work Plan Section: Milestones

• You should have 1 milestone per month, about 6 milestones total.

• Milestones go into Jira.• More about this later

• Milestones help you reach the deliverables.• You should be able to know when you are done.

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Work Plan Section: External Driving Deliverables and Constraints• Will the client be going on sabbatical in 2

months? Is the postdoc leaving? Does a postdoc need to be hired? Is the grant ending? Is the grant starting?

• These external factors can positively or negatively affect the consultation, so we need to make sure we know what they are.

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Work Plan Section: Outreach Deliverables• Identify opportunities to publicize the work to the

gateway’s community• These may help drive the work and the timeline.

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Work Plan Sections: Metrics and Analytics, Citations• Metrics: The client should think about the right

way to measure the success of the gateway.• We should help make recommendations• The SGCI Incubator should provide general guidelines

• Citations: • Gateways should cite the SGCI in papers. This helps

us track our long term impact.• Gateways have multiple opportunities to do this

• Gateways conference series (SGCI sponsored)• PEARC

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Work Plan Section: Resources

• The client identifies who will be doing the work from her/his team.

• This is short but very important.• You identify here who you will be working with.• Who answers your emails, etc?

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SGCI Jira

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Jira Overview

• Purpose: be a living version of the work plan• Update it to help me know how things are going.• Modify milestones as needed. The work plan isn’t set

in stone.

• All EDS consultations have two Jira entries.• Do you have your account?

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Consultation Epics

• I own this. • It tracks the overall workflow of the consultation.• It is linked to a Task

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Jira Tasks

• You own this• I create and assign it to you.

• Create a subtask for each milestone• This includes technical and outreach milestones

• Update milestone subtasks each month at least.• Close subtasks that are done.• You can add or modify milestones • But don’t delete

• Mark as “Won’t fix”

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I have a few slides to prompt this.

What Are Your Questions and Concerns?

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Communication Flow

• After you are assigned to a client, I do not directly discuss the consultation with the client.

• You are the main point of contact.• Tell me if things are not going well.

• Client is unresponsive• Deliverables are not realistic• You need more help• etc

• Tell me if things are going well

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What If You Don’t Have a Project?

• Recruit clients• We have other opportunities

• Develop technical material for outreach and training• Some technical work within the SGCI itself

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What’s the Best Way to Stay in Touch?

• I need to hear from you• Progress, problems, plans

• One-on-one calls every 2-3 months?• Regular team-wide calls?

• About 1/month

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Other Topics

• Do you feel like you understand the overall scope and goals the the SGCI?

• What can we do better?