Yoonseo Prototyping Plan 2013 Email

Dear Yoonseo,

Thanks for a good meeting yesterday. The first thing for your contract will be a detailed work plan - your Prototyping Plan 2013. Here is a followup from our discusssion. The plan should cover activities from Feb. 1, 2013 to July 1. 2013 - the first half of 2013. Since there will be many learnings and changes in our process, we should revisit contract continuation/amendment in mid-2013.

The process for your Prototyping Plan should be in general:

1. Dec. 21 - Jan 14. Draw up your Prototyping Plan. Your plan should address the specific projects that you will take on, milestones, and deliverables. Please specify your work plan on a weekly basis. We discussed at length the types of details that are required, including: development procedure, design, budget, executon, risk assessment and management, materials sourcing, time requirements, review process, test-driven design, and others. The milestones and deliverables should be clearly measurable, and should include clear conditions of satisfaction. For the budget, please itemize the things in each category of costs (materials, tools, supplies, equipment, running costs, labor, outsourced work if any), don't just state blanket costs in each category. If you are uncertain about the cost, state the best estimate, and add a buffer as needed.
2. Define a technical review strategy.
3. Jan. 17 - Jan 21. Submit the proposal for review to me on the 15th, and I will submit the plan to our Technical Review Team. I am currently gathering this team - a general team of technical advisors.
4. Jan 21 - Jan 25 - Make changes based on recommendations from our Technical Review Team.
5. Jan 28 - Feb 1 - Plan Assessment, Budget Allocation - Once all changes are made based on Technical Review Team suggestions, I will take the feedback and corrections and assess the plan for approval and budget allocation. This decision is not up to me alone. I will be submitting all your materials during this week to the OSE Advisory Team for general soundness and strategic alignment. I make the approval, but the advisory team makes the suggestion. I typically follow their advice, unless there are fundamental or ethical issues that I disagree with.
6. Feb 4-8 - Upon my approval, we will then write up your contract. Once again, I will have the OSE Advisory Team review the contract - based on your Prototyping Plan and including further details like budget, compensation and logistics. If we have a draft ready by Monday, Feb 4 - we can get the contract reviewed by the end of the week.

We would then move on to the execution phase - now with a sound plan and backing of experts. By that time, we should have a technical project manager, and if not, I will meet with you on a weekly basis until we recruit one.

Please put your work plan up as a work in progress Yoonseo Prototyping Plan 2013 on the wiki, or if you use Google Docs, please embed the doc on that wiki page. Please make the plan self-contained - ie, printable in hard copy without need to access the internet. This could be as simple as a wiki page that can be printed - where we assume that no hyperlinks are accessible. I would like to have this format so I could submit readily to any other relevant stakeholders/reviewers or possibly use it in other proposals. Think of this as a comprehensive document and executable blueprint - such that if you were to disappear someone else can take it on and actually do the work. This means that the designs, procedures, diagrams, BOMs, and sourcing are documented in your plan so that a person can self-orient with minimal outside assistance. This is highly relevant for getting collaborators involved. Can you do this as soon as you start writing your plan so I can follow your progress?

To sum up, this is a major effort and it requires your full attention. I want you to focus on this completely without doing any other site or workshop tasks. As I mentioned to Aidan - please consider Infrastructure as a done deal for 2012. We had an ample window of opportunity to finish things up, and now it is winter and snow and time to plan for 2013. I do not want any further work on the HabLab, cleanup, or other infrastructure to be done until next year when we have a project manager (ie, not me) and where we will have a large work day + a professional contractor come in to tidy up and approve our infrastructure. The only requirements on the site and infrastructure are fetching wood (already cut in the forest) to keep the fire going and keeping the generator running. Am I missing any other tasks/conditions that may prevent you from focusing fully on the proposal? I want to make sure that you have all that you need in order to be able to focus fully on the proposal, so if there is anything that I am not aware of - please let me know.

Please email me if you have any questions on the above or if you need me to clarify any of the requirements, of if you think that you need more time to write up the plan. Is 3 weeks enough, or do you need more time? Do you agree with the timeline otherwise? We need to do this properly, and we need to allow for the time that it will take. We should check in via Skype every week as you do your Work Plan. Can we change our Skype meeting to Friday the 28th at 5:30 PM CST to check in on your progress/cover any questions? I know we mentioned the 27th, but have a conflict then.

Thanks, Marcin --