THE CONTENTS OF THIS REPO HAVE BEEN MOVED INTO THE NCAR/XDEV REPO!!! Please use that repository in the future.

xdev-projects

All past, current, and future projects and planning documents for the Xdev Team.

This repository is meant to contain team our project plans and organization efforts. First, let's define some terminology:

• Projects are concerted efforts with a few measurable goals that span only a few months of work (i.e., a quarter of a year). Projects are meant to be small enough in scope and commitment to see the "light at the end of the tunnel." That is, it should be clear when defining a project what the outcome should be before starting any work.

• Campaigns are long-term efforts that can span multiple years, potentially. Campaigns are large enough in scope and commitment that it is hard to see what the outcome will be specifically, and yet some (possibly vague) goals can be articulated with the expectation that it might take a long time (and a lot of work) to achieve those goals. Campaigns should be seen as spanning multiple projects. Campaigns are harder to define specifically than projects, and as such should be seen more as a way of defining a direction for work to take.

Our work can be categorized into one of two categories:

• Operational work pertains to day-to-day activities that do not have a defined deadline. That is, operations can include responding to questions from scientists or users of our tools and utilities. Operations can include work to stay up-to-date on technology, such as reading blogs, following issue trackers, etc.. In simple terms, operations are the stuff we do every day just because its required to do a good job on our projects, but may not directly impact or even be associated with an existing project or campaign.

• Project work is work on a specific project, tied to a measurable goal (or goals) of that project. Most of our work should be project work. Projects should be scoped with the intention that they can be fully completed in a matter of 2-3 months (i.e., quarterly), but shorter projects are acceptable.

This repository is meant to help organize and plan our project work. The intent is for each project to be described by a single document, a Project Specification document. A template for this document exists in the projects directory. Similarly, Campaign Specification documents should be created, too, though the requirements for defining a campaign as much less stringent.

Contents

• projects/: This directory contains all project-related specifications and templates.

  • projects/current/: All project specification documents for on-going projects should be placed here.
  • projects/complete/: All project specification documents for completed projects should be placed here.
  • projects/construction/: All project specification documents for projects that are still being constructed/specified should be placed here. This includes projects that are waiting to start (and, therefore, don't have milestone dates defined, yet).
  • projects/construction/projspec_template.md: A template for Project Specification documents. When a new project is defined/specified, it should be named projspec_{codename} where {codename} is replaced by the project codename.

• campaigns/: This directory contains all campaign-related specifications and templates.

  • campaigns/current/: All campaign specification documents for on-going campaigns should be placed here.
  • campaigns/former/: All campaign specification documents for obsolete campaigns should be placed here.
  • campaigns/construction/: All campaign specification documents for campaigns that are still being constructed/specified should be placed here.
  • campaigns/construction/campspec_template.md: A template for Campaign Specification documents. When a new campaign is defined/specified, it should be named campspec_{codename} where {codename} is replaced by the campaign codename.