Managing Research Software Projects: Project Management

<div align="center" style="padding-top: 2rem;">
  <p>Managing Research Software Projects</p>
  <h1>Project Management</h1>
  <p>
    <img src="../files/codebender.svg" alt="logo" width="20%" />
  </p>
</div>

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## Project Management

- The project manager manages the schedule
  - Who is doing what?
  - When do we cut it and do something smaller?

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## Feedback Loops

- It's all about timescales

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## Analysis & Estimation

- Sticky notes on a whiteboard
- Lots of discussion

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## Analysis & Estimation

- Sticky notes on a whiteboard
- Lots of discussion

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## Status Updates

- Three-column table in a Google Doc for each weekly meeting

<table width="100%" class="smalltable">
  <tr>
    <th>Person</th>
    <th>Progress</th>
    <th>Plans</th>
    <th>Discussion</th>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Ren</td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>Parsing OCTL records</li>
	<li>Deployed progress bar patch</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>Tag OCTL records in DVC</li>
	<li>Help onboard Silvia</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>Duplicate OCTL tags?</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Mikka</td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>Refactored PostgreSQL connector</li>
	<li>Patched database tests</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>#156: handle records with NULL timestamp</li>
	<li>#171: auto-archive duplicate records</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>Clarify authorship guidelines</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Sanjay</td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>…</li>
	<li>…</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>…</li>
	<li>…</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>…</li>
	<li>…</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
  </tr>
  <tr>
    <td>Jess</td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>…</li>
	<li>…</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>…</li>
	<li>…</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
    <td>
      <ul>
	<li>…</li>
	<li>…</li>
      </ul>
    </td>
  </tr>
</table>

- Anyone can <strong><em>highlight</em></strong> items they want discussed

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## Productivity

- [<a href="../bibliography/#Prechelt2000">Prechelt2000</a>] programmers implement the same thing in the language of their choice
- How long did it take?

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## Productivity

- Shortest and longest times were 0.6 and 63 hours
  - Ratio is 150X (!)
- But people used 7 different languages
- If we only look at Java, times are 3.8 vs. 63 hours (17X)
- But comparing best and worst exaggerates differences
- 90th percentile vs. 50th gives 3.7X

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## Findability

- Make them the same in all repositories

<div align="center">
<table class="smalltable">
  <tr><th>Group</th><th>Label</th><th>Meaning</th></tr>
  <tr><td>Challenge</td><td>bug report</td><td>Something isn't working</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>feature request</td><td>Something more is needed</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>question</td><td>Can you please explain…</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Response</td><td>cleanup</td><td>Tidying up</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>enhancement</td><td>Adds something new</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>discussion</td><td>Question or proposal</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>fix</td><td>Fixes a problem</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Kind</td><td>design</td><td>User interface</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>code</td><td>In the software</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>docs</td><td>In the documentation</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>test</td><td>Because quality</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>release</td><td>Packaging and publication</td></tr>
  <tr><td>Misc</td><td>good first issue</td><td>Good for newcomers</td></tr>
  <tr><td></td><td>task</td><td>An instance of a checklist</td></tr>
</table>
</div>

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## In Progress

1. What do you expect each of your colleagues to deliver this week?
1. What do *they* expect *you* to deliver?
1. What roadblocks do they face?
1. How much of this could you discover without talking to them?