Managing an OSE Project

This page is under construction

Overview and Context

The Open Source Ecology project (OSE) is really a collection of projects, each focused on a task that brings us close to the vision described in the OE Proposal. Many of these projects will be focused on the Global Village Construction Set, but smaller projects will likely be set up around component development and other tasks. OSE is in the process of setting up projects for all 50 of the GVCS Tools. This document and those related to the Guide to OSE Projects is intended to provide guidelines on how to manage an OSE project.

It is important to understand that OSE embraces Open Source Development, which means that many of the people working on OSE projects are volunteers donating their time, money, and labor to something that they believe in. The principles of open source have an impact on how open source projects are run. Transparency is important. The voluntary contributions of labor, time, and money influence how things can be done and how fast things can be done. Care must be taken with the intellectual property contributed to OSE. Even open source must be protected against those who might take it and lock it up (via patents, for example).

As the title implies, this document describes how to manage an OSE project. If you are interested in starting one up, please see Starting an OSE Project.

Roles and Responsibilities

Every OSE project is considered a team of people who have come together to design, develop, and build something that furthers the overall goals of OSE whether that is a GVCS machine, a new open source component, or an applications of existing technologies. Especially for GVCS projects, there are certain well-defined roles taken on by project volunteers. These include:

• Project Manager and Sub-project Team Leaders
• CAD Designers
• Prototypers and Fabricators
• Marketing Specialists and Fundraisers
• Recruitment
• Power Electronics Developers
• Mechanical Engineers
• Software Engineers
• Metallurgists
• Documentation Specialists and Videographers
• Subject Matter Experts
• Reviewers

Project Manager Duties

The OSE project manager is the key leader of an OSE project. Duties include:

• Develop a plan and guide it's execute towards developing and delivering an OSE product.
• Lead volunteers in the tasks needed to develop a product.
• Recruit volunteers as needed.
• Communicate project status through the wiki, forums, blog, and other channels.
• Work with the OSE Director to coordinate this project with other OSE projects.
• Ensure high quality product documentation that abides by OSE specifications.
• Take responsibility for any money transactions that may be required.

See also Project Manager Duties

Marketing Specialist Duties

Ideally, each OSE project (especially the major ones) will have a marketing specialist. The person is responsible for communicating the worth of this product to the rest of OSE and to the world at large. The marketing specialist works closely with the project manager to:

• Develop and deliver product-oriented documentation and literature
• Develop and deliver promotional material including web pages, blogs, announcements, press releases, photos, videos, etc.
• Promote the product for recruitment purposes
• Promote the product for fund raising purposes

Documentation Specialist Duties

The project documentation specialist is responsible for creating and maintaining all of the documentation associated with the project which include:

• Research notes and links
• All technical documentation
• Fabrication notes, photos, and videos
• Descriptions, photos, and videos of the product in use
• Marketing materials
• Educational materials

Subject Matter Expert Duties

A subject matter expert (SME) is (as the name implies) an expert in the subject area that the product is based on. Where more than one technology is used to develop a product, multiple subject matter experts can be brought in. So, for example, the welding table project might have subject matter experts in welding and numerical control devices.

Duties of the SME include:

• Technical guidance and advice
• Review of design and technical materials produced

Developer Duties

There are many different kinds of developers that can be associated with a project. They include CAD designers, product designers, artists, electrical and mechanical engineers, fabricators, makers, programmers, etc.

Developer duties include:

• Work with the project manager to communicate availability
• Completion of work tasks in a timely manner
• Working with the process tools developed by OSE, such as Pivotal for project tracking
• Communication of completion or development difficulties as they occur.

Working with the OSE Core Team

A high level view of OSE leadership can be viewed in Development Team. Among these is the "OSE Core Team". The core team is led by the OSE Executive Director (OSE-ED), currently Marcin Jakubowski who is also the founder of OSE. Reporting to him are several positions that ensure that the whole OSE project runs smoothly. These include a Media Director, Resource Director and Donor Relations, Business Consultant, Operations Manager, and Web Administrator. These people are there to support the work of the project manager, in addition to other responsibilities. While they can't do project work for you, they are a resource that can be tapped for ideas, etc.

At this time, all OSE project managers report to the OSE Executive Director (Marcin). This is likely to change over time since no one can easily direct the efforts of fifty separate (and interconnected) projects. The following things should be communicated to the Executive Director:

• Major milestones accomplished
• Major problems that have come up
• Conflicts with other projects
• Money related matters (TBD)

What he doesn't need to hear is all of the fine details going on in your project. It's too much information. The OSE Wiki pages are designed to give the Executive Director detailed insight as needed as well as providing information to developers, fabricators, makers, and consumers. He will be looking at certain pages to get a feel for progress, such as the GVCS Tools Status. Such pages need to be kept up to date and accurate.

Managing a Project

Delegation and Division of Labor

All of the GVCS projects are too large for one person to design, develop, and build. With that in mind, the project manager needs to recruit new people to his (or her) team and give them things to do. When the team is small (3-8), internal project communication can be managed. As the team grows beyond that, additional organization may need to be added. To some extent, this is a matter of personal management style: shallow structures vs. deep ones, report and status styles, hands-on vs. hands-off, etc. There is plenty of room in OSE product development to accommodate different approaches to product development and team organization. Ultimately, each OSE project will be judged on it's results: the product(s) that come out of it.

The OSE Project Life-Cycle

Here is a diagram from the the OSE Development Strategy:

Design leads to drawings and material specifications. These are reviewed and spun out to fabrication bids leading to prototype assembly and testing. Eventually, the product goes into production.

Key Milestones

The following are some of the key milestones in all OSE projects:

1. Product Description and Rationale
2. Design and Specification
3. Part Sourcing and Build Instructions
4. Design Review
5. Fabrication
6. Prototype Assembly and Testing
7. Full Fab/Assembly Documentation
8. Production

Some of these steps may be iterative or broken down into smaller milestones as needed.

Project Tracking using Pivotal

Recently, OSE has started to experiment with a project management application called Pivotal. This tools has been made available to OSE based on it's non-profit, open source status free of charge. The Pivotal Task Tracker allows tasks (stories) to be defined, tracked, and managed using agile development techniques. Our current goal is to import the development steps of the GVCS Development Template into Pivotal - as tasks that can be taken on by people. The Systems Engineering Breakdown Diagrams should break technologies down into components, so these can be turned into tasks. The key is to break down complex development paths into small chunks - as suggested in this important writing.

All of the OSE projects are public to view, but you must be a team member to enter new stories or work on a task. To see the public OSE projects link to [1] and search for "OSE".

The GVCS Tools Status is also something of a management tool since it rolls up much of the status and high level progress of the various projects. You can more or less see what projects are active and what is being worked on (provided this page is maintained).

• Development Strategy
• Systems Engineering Breakdown Diagrams
• OSE Specifications
• Documentation Standards
• TRIZ - problem solving

Documentation Standards

Documentation standards to describe and track OSE projects are still under development. Only one product has gone through the full project life cycle - the CEB Press, and others have several prototypes - LifeTrac, Microtractor, Power Cube,Torch table - and are under development. Have a look at how these pages are organized to get a feel for how to set up OSE project pages. All GVCS projects should use the Product Template, which is illustrated on Torch Table Intro. At a minimum, each GVCS project should have the following pages:

• Intro
• Development process
• Bill of Materials
• Build Instructions
• Buy It!
• User's Manual

Note: Marcin would eliminate the Buy It until AFTER clarity is attained on: the OSE Label, OSE Specifications, Fabricator Training, Product Standards and Testing, License - and other fundamentals of Distributive Enterprise creation. We are setting new standards for distributive enterprise, and this should not be taken lightly.

This organization is being discussed at the current time (June 2011) and may be revised in the future.

The Wiki_Templates describes the only real standard we have for project documentation at this time by the core team back in January, 2011 (Marcin, Isaiah, Floyd in a face-to-face meeting). Other templates have been proposed independently of the core team since then, and much confusion has arisen as many people joined development efforts. Mark Norton has proposed expanding the tool template to include pages for an Overview, Research, Design, Development, Specifications, Bill of Materials, Build Instructions, How to Buy, and a User Manual. See Mark J Norton/GVCS Template for details but be aware that this is NOT an adopted OSE standard.

Other pages related to project documentation include:

• Wiki Documentation Standards

Team Dynamics

• Essay on Creative Problem-Solving

Dealing with Volunteers

• Recruitment - Crowdmap
  • Recruiting People
  • Keeping people on task and focused
  • Disruptive or Harmful Behaviors
  • Time management - yours and theirs

Communication

• • Status - what pages need to be updated? GVCS Tools Status
  • Promotion - blogging, etc.
  • Use of Forums
  • Marketing
  • Describing project needs - Project Needs

Money Matters

• On-Site Fabrication at Factor e Farm for bootstrap funding
• Business Plan
• Incubator Business Plan
• Lifetime Investors
• Support Open Source Ecology

• • Raising Funds
  • Keeping Track of Money
  • Transparency
  • Record Keeping

Other Pages

GVCS Organizational Development Template

Outline

The following topics need to be covered here from a management perspective:

• Starting an OSE Project
• Roles and Responsibilities
  • Project Roles
  • Project Manager Responsibilities
  • Other Key Roles and what they do
  • Relationship to OSE Core Team - Development Team
• Dealing with Volunteers
  • Recruiting People
  • Keeping people on task and focused
  • Disruptive or Harmful Behaviors
  • Time management - yours and theirs
• Communication
  • Status - what pages need to be updated? GVCS Tools Status
  • Promotion - blogging, etc.
  • Use of Forums
  • Marketing
  • Describing project needs - Project Needs
• Managing the Project
  • The OSE Project Life-Cycle
  • Key Milestones
  • Managing Tasks using Pivotal
  • Development Strategy
  • Systems Engineering Breakdown Diagrams
  • OSE Specifications
  • Documentation Standards
• Money Matters
  • Raising Funds
  • Keeping Track of Money
  • Transparency
  • Record Keeping