# 2019 Q3 review / Q4 planning meeting ## Agenda * team building fun stuff * [Team building activities](https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1-8Xgu8kdyk8iJqQJNNXS6iS61JECeYc5WNw_G0CIBek/edit#slide=id.p) * Mission and Vision: review and update * RezBaz overview https://hackmd.io/wwTnFMJPRLq6HnoQmU79iQ * [Ours (OSF)](https://osf.io/emq9s/wiki/home/) * How do we use the M&V? * deciding which projects to take on / activities to prioritize * creating OKRs * Chris's ["Computing Success for Scientists"](https://docs.google.com/document/d/10thdQaaaS3AuG7S8RSmBGDeuCPMYZGJSspG14WvjOSw/edit) * Read, discuss, improve * each person presents * major accomplishments * what went well, what didn't * plans * OKR's * review prev. quarter * individually write next quarter * review next quarter w./ group (one at a time) ## Discussion Topics - [-] UCAP mapping and career trajectories - [ ] Five year goals * what people want to do and how to get there * Not necessarily 'in this job', but in their career. - [ ] Review protocols for PRs * used to spread knowledge * need to use specific focus goals * what is scope; define what it solves and how - [ ] How to reduce meetings * Julian proposes loomio.org - [-] Team OKRs, Pairing up on projects * knowledge sharing and collaboration; identify collaborations around specific projects * BrAPI / NAL project * TERRA REF pipeline * TERRA REF data / NSF ideas lab - [ ] Review of ideas list (Julian) - [x] Resignation post-mortem * salaries * expectations for resignation / job security * Chris: Should we add explicit performance reviews, so people know 'how they are doing'? (Under setting expectations.) * Not annual reviews, but on an ongoing basis. - [ ] Website: * stick with Drupal or migrate? - [-] [Skills Matrix](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1N95GgtAgvpQ9PhpiYwqWYewWu-FOzeIoQxzX2oldUuk/edit#gid=0): review and update * what do people want to do that they aren't currently doing? ## Notes ### Current Mission & Vision **Vision: Faster, More Collaborative Agricultural Science and Engineering through Shared Software and Data** Our software will be used and collaboratively developed by researchers at major land grant universities, global agricultural research centers, and industry. We will enable scientists to spend less time engineering bespoke pipelines and collecting redundant data so that they can spend more time developing algorithms, augmenting existing data with strategic data collection, and analyzing data. **Mission: Providing solutions for computing in Agriculture** The mission of the UA ag data group is to provide scientists and engineers with open software, data, and computing that will allow more efficient discovery and invention so that we can engineer crops and manage sustainable agricultural landscapes that produce food, energy, and ecosystem services. ### Mission & Vision Brainstorm * Starting verb?: Enable... * reproducible, open, accessible, more accurate * impact state of human affairs / move things forward * lower the bar * more rapid progress * faster implies ... more accurate, less technical barriers to discovery and sharing information * faster better science ### Exercise: Subtraction For example, compare with CyVerse, other organizations we partner with, and decide where should we not try to reinvent the wheel. Does not mean that individual contributors in the group can't get involved in some of these activities, but it's not the primary aim of the group as a whole. **Boundaries:** **What should we *not* get involved in? (As a primary role of the group)** - bespoke solutions - no single use (used as prototypes to identify general solutions) - build infrastructure that depends on a particular environment - build a new crop or ecosystem model - develop a new theory - develop a new general purpose software language / database / workflow / computing infrastructure tool - b/c we want to leverage existing tools to achieve re-useable, generalizable things - we don't want to build anything from scratch **What should we *not* do? (Mainly)** - lead a basic science paper or proposal - ours are domain specific software and data papers - improve scientific software community as a whole - basic ecological research (should have applied purpose) - develop a new crop variety - provide computing hardware - this is done by CyVerse, campus clusters, XSEDE, etc **Examples of thought experiments** - How much of Welsch could/should be done using CyVerse VICE? ### Updated Vision Statement?: Enabling powerful computing for engineered landscapes and ecosystem sciences? enabling better agricultural science through (something) engineering landscapes / ecosystems leveraging data for better science and engineering for managed landscapes standards, best practices, solutions, teaching/training **Mission:** Providing community solutions for better science through standards, best practices, education, and infrastructure to allow efficient discovery and invention of sustainable agriculture. * build software tools and pipelines * develop and teach educational material * model plant ecology * engage with community and/or create communities of practice to determine and use common approaches... * community building * enabling scientists * * cutting edge science > (current mission) The mission of the UA ag data group is to provide scientists and engineers with open software, data, and computing that will allow more efficient discovery and invention so that we can engineer crops and manage sustainable agricultural landscapes. **Example Mission statements:** > Mission: The Carpentries builds global capacity in essential data and computational skills for conducting efficient, open, and reproducible research. We train and foster an active, inclusive, diverse community of learners and instructors that promotes and models the importance of software and data in research. We collaboratively develop openly-available lessons and deliver these lessons using evidence-based teaching practices. We focus on people conducting and supporting research. **Carpentries Vision & Mission RFCs:** https://github.com/carpentries/executive-council-info/issues/1 https://github.com/carpentries/executive-council-info/issues/2 https://github.com/carpentries/executive-council-info/issues/25 **Individual vision and mission statements?** ## Computing Success for Scientists - Clarifying 'authority' and 'power': An intellectual authority on best practices, who have power through recommendations and steering collaborators in certain ways? Or is it more than this? - _Become_ the experts - See: CyVerse, National Data Service, XSEDE ECS, XPert Network - Do it through: - White papers, templates, best practices, case studies, articles, methods papers, etc. - Q: How does this tie into vision & mission? - Q: How does this manifest in concrete Objectives and Key Results? - Q: Instead of IP, do we mean: - Having a (deserved) reputation (for) - Specialized skills and knowledge - Being a center of excellence ## for next time Have each person identify what they think others should be doing. What are they doing vs. what is possible ### References - https://swcarpentry.github.io/managing-research-software-projects/ - https://sites.udel.edu/xpert-cdi/ - http://urssi.us/ - https://www.cyverse.org/collaboration-policy - https://www.cyverse.org/powered-by-cyverse - https://github.com/cyverse/edu/wiki/Reproducible-Software-Carpentry ### Exercise What do you think each person in the team has contributed over the last quarter?