Project Management Toolkit

Transcription

1 Web 2.0 Tool for e-research Project Management Matteo Turilli, Ralph Schroeder, Marina Jirotka, Sharon Lloyd, Eric T. Meyer Oxford e-research Centre (OeRC) Requirements & Foundations Group University of Oxford EPSRC Embedding e-science Applications. Designing and managing for usability

2 Outline Project Management and e-science Challenges Addressing the challenges Project Management Toolkit Requirements, Design and Implementation Conclusions

3 Project Management in e-science PM is to foresee or predict as many of the dangers and problems as possible and to plan, organise and control activities so that the project is completed as successfully as possible (Lock 1966) E-science projects: large, distributed, multi-disciplinary teams, from academia and industry working on research activity Andrew Warr et al report based on literature review and fieldwork conducted within ediamond, Integrative Biology, NeuroGrid, GIMI PM methods: Prince 2, PMBOK,... Software development models: waterfall; spiral model; incremental, evolutionary, reuse-based development; throw-away prototyping; formal methods, agile,...

4 Challenges Heterogeneity Deliverables: research papers, prototypes/systems, communities of e-scientists Overhead PM requires reports, analysis, documentation, meetings on top of the usual research activity Cultural differences Relationship Principal Investigators/Project Managers Industry/academic oriented professional approaches Peculiarities Research bids, legal framework, Intellectual Property, collaboration, software realises, requirement engineering

5 Addressing the Challenges Three types of activities 1. Theoretical and applied research Tailoring PM and development methodologies to e-science A. Warr s report, general model of PM, conception phase and close-down activities 2. Organisational changes Aggregation and group activities Oxford PM Clinics 3. Dissemination and awareness Infrastructures to promote awareness and knowledge dissemination among project managers PM Toolkit

6 Project Management Toolkit Goal: Users: Scope: to develop a platform to store knowledge and promote critical discussion about project management project managers involved in academic e-science projects Oxford-based project managers Requirements: Complementary to project management software tools Not committed to specific PM models/theories Minimal overhead: easy to use, to expand and to manage Community oriented Self-sustained Multiplatform

7 Design Content Articles Knowledge base content Page Static content about the toolkit Attachments Images, PDFs, DOCs,... Comments Available for each KB article Taxonomy Project Conception Project Start-up Project Planning Project Execution Project Monitoring Project Closedown

8 Design Content Articles Page Attachments Comments Case Studies Reports Presentations Links Bibliographies Taxonomy Project Conception Project Start-up Project Planning Project Execution Project Monitoring Project Closedown

9 Design Content Articles Knowledge base content Page Static content about the toolkit Attachments Images, PDFs, DOCs,... Comments Available for each KB article Taxonomy Project Conception Project Start-up Project Planning Project Execution Project Monitoring Project Closedown Initial Concept Partnership Research Agenda Grant Application Constraints Methods for project conception Tools for project conception

10 Design Content Articles Knowledge base content Page Static content about the toolkit Attachments Images, PDFs, DOCs,... Comments Available for each KB article Taxonomy Project Conception Project Start-up Project Planning Project Execution Project Monitoring Project Closedown Consortium set up Governance strategy Communication strategy Process strategy Role definition Recruitment Team building Work environment

11 Design Users Administrator Responsible for toolkit maintenance Moderators Responsible for KB articles quality End users PMs that contribute content to the toolkit Anonymous Readers of the toolkit content Authentication/Authorisation Define the rights for every type of user Content and comment administration and submission Allows for the creation of groups of users Submission process Authentication choose type of content tag content content creation submission moderation publication

12 Prototype Implementation Linux VM, PHP + Apache, Drupal + modules Static content Search/navigation Anonymous access Taxonomy Authentication

13 Implementation Content Creation Authorship Type of submission Content Tagging based on the given taxonomy

14 Implementation Content Creation Content relations Easy WYSIWYG editing with automatic reference and footnote management Multiple attachments

15 Implementation Content Search Search by: Keyword Article type Taxonomy Content type

16 Conclusions Challenges Adding content to the toolkit is a time-consuming activity for already overcommitted project managers. Populating the PM toolkit should become part of project close down activity Future development Implementing a folksonomy alongside the existent taxonomy Simplifying the submission procedure Decentralise the quality assessment procedure replacing the moderation model Community building Extending the scope of the toolkit outside the boundaries of the Oxford project managers community

17 Thank you Matteo Turilli, Ralph Schroeder, Marina Jirotka, Sharon Lloyd, Eric T. Meyer Oxford e-research Centre (OeRC) Requirements & Foundations Group University of Oxford EPSRC Embedding e-science Applications. Designing and managing for usability