WBS 2.6.3 Project Management, Reporting & Risk Management (PM&R)

Mission Statement

Project Management, Reporting & Risk Management (PM&R) enables an effective virtual organization through application of project management principles, provides visibility to project progress, successes, and challenges, brings new ideas and management practices into the project and disseminates lessons learned in XSEDE to other virtual organizations.

KPIs and Metrics 

Team Members

Communication & Meetings

The PM&R group meets bi-weekly on Monday at 2pm ET.

Access PM meeting coordinates and notes. 

WBS 2.6.3 - PM&R Google Drive: https://drive.google.com/drive/u/2/folders/0B16f9Te7wFwma2I4a1pacU0wTm8

New Staff Orientation

• Expectations:

  • Participate in the activities and communications of the project management team

  • Serve as the primary PM for PM&R and/or XSEDE-wide project initiatives, as assigned

  • Document SOP for general project management procedures of XSEDE

  • Coordinate communications in the form of teleconferences, quarterly meetings, project-wide meetings, and reporting

  • Maintain PM&R processes, tools, and resources, including but not limited to:

  • XSEDE Staff Wiki

  • Change Control

  • Project mail lists

  • Risk Register

  • Metrics Dashboard

  • Finance Portal

  • JIRA

  • Attend scheduled PM&R team calls

  • Suggest process improvement project, as appropriate

Projects

• Internal Communication Management (Lead: Leslie Froeschl)
  • In general, the highly distributed nature of XSEDE requires that project staff communicate frequently and thoroughly in order to provide the appropriate deliverables and to recognize opportunities and risks early.  As a result, XSEDE relies heavily upon tools such as Zoom and internal mailing lists for WBS and project-wide communication. Enabling open dialog promotes awareness of current activities and future plans and facilitates consensus building by including XSEDE personnel as well as NSF and Advisory Committee Chairs. There is extensive communications vertically and horizontally across the organization.
• Google Drive (Lead: Deb Nigra)
• Project Improvement Fund (Lead: Ron Payne)
• Key Performance Indicators (Lead: Scott Wells)
  • Key Performance Indicators or KPIs are a class of metrics used at the L2 or Project-level to measure progress toward the project's strategic goals. There is at least one KPI per strategic sub-goal.
• Project Change Control (Lead: Scott Wells)
  • The change control process allows for documentation of project changes that affect technical, schedule, cost/budget, staff, project-wide key performance indicators, area metrics, scope, and/or other baseline changes. Any XSEDE staff member may submit a request to modify the execution of the project, which requires the completion of a Project Change Request (PCR). The PCR form is located on the Project Change Control wiki page linked to above. 
• Schedule and Instructions for Project Reports and Annual Program Plans (Lead: Noni Ledford)
  • Interim reports, an Annual Report, and other ad-hoc reports are required for the XSEDE project by NSF. The reporting process provides a schedule, a report template, and detailed instructions for each step of the reporting process.
• Risk Management (Lead: Sonia Nayak)
  • Risk Management is key to the success of XSEDE. By identifying risks, their triggers, mitigation strategy and contingency plans, XSEDE can reduce the risk and keep moving forward. Before each quarterly meeting, risk owners will be asked to review their risks, providing any updates and adding any new risks that may have appeared. A risk Report/review may be given at the quarterly meetings.
• Planning (Lead: Noni Ledford)
  • Annually, XSEDE must plan for the activities to be executed in the next plan year. Program Planning provides a schedule of the planning activities, templates for each of the deliverables, and detailed directions for what to do in each step of the process.
• Staff Onboarding/Offboarding (Lead: Scott Wells)
  • As new staff members arrive and existing staff depart, access to the staff Wiki and other resources requires some degree of coordination. 
    • As of February 2022, the process for adding access for new staff is handled by the appropriate L2 project manager through COmanage. 
    • Removing access for exiting staff is initiated by the completion of a Google form. Completion of the offboarding form is not meant to address staff who flow in and out during the project year, but rather permanent departure from XSEDE. Temporary resource addition or removal should be handled individually. 

• Quarterly Meeting Actions/Decision Management (Lead: Sonia Nayak)
  • Four times a year, XSEDE management staff gather and meet for two days. These meetings consist of multiple presentations and discussions. A product of these presentations and discussions is often action items and decision making. These are logged and tracked by XSEDE staff using JIRA. 
• Project Execution Plan Maintenance (Lead: Leslie Froeschl)
  •  The project execution plan (PEP) contains descriptions of the standard operating procedures for the project. The PEP, along with the project's SOPs, is meant to serve as an orientation source for new project staff and to provide guidelines to the processes we use to execute the project.

• Wiki Standards and Guidelines 

  (Lead: Deb Nigra)

  • The XSEDE project uses a wiki that is largely open to the public. This policy document governs the access and use of the wiki.

• Recommendations (Lead: Leslie Froeschl)

  • The XSEDE project is regularly reviewed by various stakeholder groups (e.g., XSEDE Advisory Board, XSEDE Service Provider Forum, National Science Foundation). A product of these reviews is recommendations for the project. These recommendations are logged and addressed by XSEDE staff using JIRA.  

Project Managers by Area