Tag: Agile

OKR and Project Management

Written by Giovanny Guillen on November 30, 2021. Posted in Articles.

What are OKRs?

OKR stands for Objectives and Key Results. This allows to clearly define the course in a project must be set to achieve the expected result, for this OKRs are established in objectives that can be measured. The OKR method consists, first in establishing qualitative objectives, and second define the strategy to quantify the outcomes and the achievement of these objectives. In addition, it is essential that once the results of the process have been quantified, a retrospective is made to discuss the results obtained (Something that can be associated with the development of agile methodologies).

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One of the main characteristics that enhance the positive impact of OKRs is that they vary between two types of objectives:

Very difficult objectives to achieve. The purpose of these objectives is to motivate the team and exploit their skills to the fullest.
Achievable objectives, which can be developed smoothly by the team.

These two types of objectives must vary and coexist to achieve good outcomes.

What are the differences between OKRs and KPIs?

The main difference between KPIs and OKRs is that KPIs are performance indicators associated with the team and the process with which the results are obtained. OKR is associated with increments to deliver value in an iteration or the final result of an iteration, having a more global reach of the organization.

OKR in Agility

In agility the purpose of each iteration is to add value to the product that is being developed, OKRs can play an important role since they provide support in the efficiency of processes and allow to enhance their value based on organizational goals. In an agile organization, the team needs to define, by themselves, OKRs. This is because there will be no one better at setting the key results than the same team that plans to develop them.

KRs

It is essential to be focused on the KR or key results and this must be differentiated from the tasks.

A key outcome must be geared towards what needs to be achieved.
One task will be how development is proposed.

For this reason, KRs should be prevented from being sorted as a task list.

In order to measure these results, it is necessary to establish a scoring scale:

Between 0 and 1 using decimals
Between 0 and 10 with integers

One of the indicators that must be borne in mind is that the score must be staggered, that is, if we have scores for results that only indicate 0 and 1 or 0 and 10 should be analyzed since they possibly resemble a list of tasks (a situation that has already been described and should be avoided).

The key results for them to be scored should be as least subjective as possible. An example of this can be, for example, if a company has fixed a KR to increase monthly sales considerably, instead of, to fix a KR to increase monthly sales by 10%, the latter will be easier to measure.

A fairly common mistake in the results is that they don’t know how to measure KRs, which could completely divert the development of the activities of a team.

OKRs must always be established at the team level and the work to consolidate them must always be collaborative, it is common that between 4 and 8 KR are established by objectives and that those are evaluated in a period.

The O

The objectives are what guide the development of the KR and are fundamental to know the direction of the project or product that you want to develop. Its fundamental characteristics are:

They must be challenging and inspiring objectives since in this way the team will be motivated to achieve them.
The objective should qualitatively describe what you want to achieve with the result or/and the product.
They must be limited to a period in which they will be developed.

The objectives, unlike the results, can spare with the metrics to be reflected, that is, they do not need a numerical parameter that limits since they are qualitative propositions.

In the objectives there are two key errors that can damage the methodology:

Set impossible objectives; since the people who will develop the activities will be unmotivated under the knowledge that they will not be able to consolidate it. Usually, this happens if the goal is set by a person who doesn´t develop the activities (The principle of self-organized teams is not followed).
Set easy objectives; like the previous one demotivation is generated, in this case, objectives don´t invite to work for them.

OKRs Methodology and Cycle

To implement OKR in your organization or even in your personal life, you have to follow the next steps:

Review or define your annual vision and mission. In the current environment with the changes in the market, laws, economy, and customers preference, it is important to review and validate if these statements are true yet.
Define the strategy to face changes and uncertainty and accomplish with the vision and mission.
Define key objectives that must be aligned to the vision, mission, and strategies. This is a 3- or 4-months cycle. To establish it, follow the next steps:
1. Define objectives with your team. Each objective must be clear, time achievable, and measurable.
2. Specify the actions for each objective that can help to achieve it. Each action could represent a project initiative.
3. Each week, review your progress based on the metrics from every project and analyze if you are in the correct direction.
4. If you detect deviation improve your OKRs making the changes needed to correct it.
5. After 3 or 4 months, repeat the cycle with the aim to make changes and improve OKRs again.

Figure 1. OKR Methodology and Cycle

OKRs and Project Management

While OKR is the way to define objectives for a short period, and establish the desirable results, project management, especially agile methodologies, is the way to become those objectives and results into a reality. OKRs allow business and project managers to face uncertain, evaluate risk, and changes in the market to set the direction and to make decisions about what changes are needed in current projects or which projects initiate or cancel.

Figure 2. OKRs and Project Management

The objectives execution through project management allows to gather the information and get the metrics needed to determine if objectives are achieved in a short period, with the aim to execute the OKR cycle again. From objectives, product owners, business analysts, and project managers can organize and plan releases, iterations, and sprints to develop the product.

Figure 3. OKRs and Project Management Alignment

Final Considerations

To develop OKRs one of the keys is consistency in them since it will be useless to start based on them and then never feedback or evaluate them.
It is always good to reference the methodology in already proven models, however, to achieve the maximum potential and understand the development of a specific case it is convenient to study and adapt the OKRs.
OKRs are a very powerful tool, however, it is difficult to strategically guide an organization based on them because:

They don’t necessarily have a long-term vision but are set for more limited periods.
Lack of management in the evolution of different scenarios and the detection of changes.
They only contemplate the results.
The processes to achieve results are based on project management.

OKRs can be defined as a tool of the great potential that will allow articulating with other procedures to obtain what would be an organizational strategy.

Top 10 Business Trends To Watch For In 2022

Written by Andrea Brockmeier on November 16, 2021. Posted in Articles.

By Andrea Brockmeier, Jason Cassidy, Susan Heidorn, Jose Marcial Portilla, and Mike Stuedemann

While 2021 has been better in many ways than 2020, it doesn’t feel much more predictable. Yet, at Educate 360 we have identified some the biggest trends we are seeing and expect organizations to continue experiencing in Project Management, Business Analysis, Agile, Data Science, and Leadership in the year ahead.

Overall, the theme of working remotely comes through loud and clear and we expect it to impact almost every area that we covered.

Here are our Top 10 trends to watch for in 2022. We’d love to hear your thoughts about our observations and prognostications.

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Project Management

Project Managers as Project Leaders

The recognition that project managers are both leaders and managers is not new, but the need for the leadership aspect of the role has intensified in the last couple of years and will continue to do so in 2022. In fact, we are hearing more organizations using the title project leader as opposed to project manager.

To be sure, the technical aspects of the job such as scheduling, budgeting, and tracking haven’t been eliminated, but the need for skills like influencing, facilitating, communicating and other “soft” skills associated with the PM as leader has become paramount. Project managers as leaders are going to continue to be challenged in 2022 with distributed teams and all the distractions of ever-changing global and work environments. Leading the team and engaging stakeholders to sustain buy-in is going to continue to be job one for effective PMs in 2022.

More Organizations Using Project Management Tools

In 2022, expect to see a continued increase in the use of project management tools beyond the standard Microsoft Office suite. We used to see only the occasional client using a PM application of any kind and it was almost always Microsoft Project. Whether because people are working remotely, tools have become more cost effective, or tools have become more accessible and easier to use, we see more organizations using PM-specific tools and we’re seeing a wider variety of tools, as well.

At first this may seem contradictory to the previous trend of project leadership getting emphasized over project management; tools are not generally used for the leadership aspects of the PM role. Perhaps these trends are mutually reinforcing in that tools like Asana, Wrike, Easy Project, Smartsheet and others help with project management which allows the PM to tend to the demands of project leadership. Whatever the reason, we look ahead to 2022 as a robust year for PM tool implementation.

Business Analysis

Strong Facilitation and Communication Skills for Remote Business Analysts

We have all have heard about the Great Resignation – employees leaving their jobs in record numbers in search of better pay and career opportunities, a healthier work-life balance, a less toxic working environment, and desire to continue to work remotely. As a result, many companies are reducing their carbon footprint as well as costs, so they either have smaller offices, holding a space for meetings or providing “hoteling” spaces when employees need or want to go into the office to work. Organizations are also realizing that they can hire talent around the globe.

So, what does this mean for business analysts? It means we must get better at communicating and facilitating in a virtual environment. We must learn how to build trust when we can’t directly “see” stakeholders daily. We must be able to facilitate virtually to ensure we elicit inclusive requirements and not just those from a few vocal stakeholders. We need to learn to creatively collaborate with our team members, colleagues, and key stakeholders to ensure we have their buy-in.

BAs need to think about communicating and facilitating with more intention. This calls for mindful facilitation as opposed to simply the ability to use Microsoft Teams, Slack, or other communication platforms. We are already starting to see – and we continue to see in 2022 – more BAs focus on learning how to create safe, trust-laden, and collaborative environments within which stakeholders readily share information in a world that has been changed forever.

Digital Transformation Strategy Supported by Business Analysis

Digital transformation has been a trend for some years, and it is still going full steam ahead. Yet, most of these efforts fail. There are many reasons cited for this failure; among the most common include:

NOT understanding the business problem, but instead just throwing solutions or technology at the wall to see what sticks.
NOT determining success criteria so organizations have no way of knowing if the initiative has been successful because there was not a shared understanding of what success looked like.
NOT realizing that digital transformation introduces cultural changes in the organization (which is also one of the reasons many organizations had difficulty adopting agile).

Because of these failures, organizations moving toward digital transformation will rely more on business analysis capabilities to effectively address root causes of the problems above. BAs will be used on digital transformation initiatives to ensure the business problem or opportunity has been fully analyzed and understood, to verify that the organization is ready to adopt the new culture, and to identify overall success measures as well as identifying smaller, incremental success measures that can be measured throughout the project.

These efforts will also require a business analyst’s in-depth knowledge of agile business analysis approaches, tools, and techniques that will be critical as organizations strive to become more agile in their ability to respond to customers and competitors. Look for lots of opportunities in 2022 for BAs to plug in as key strategic resources on digital transformations.

Agile

Teams Continue to be Distributed – By Choice, Not Necessity

It can be argued that the COVID 19 pandemic did more to transform the world of work than any document, framework, certification approach or technology. One of the lasting impacts of the pandemic is that distributed teams are here to stay. Product development team members and their leaders will need to permanently adjust to working in a distributed fashion.

While many still share the perception that all Agile frameworks require co-located teams (see principle 6 associated with the Agile Manifesto), technology has advanced to the point where a team adopting a framework doesn’t need to all be in the same location. Continued discipline, particularly in the area of communication and team working together agreements, will be required as teams shift from distributed work by necessity to distributed work by choice.

Scaling – Addition by Addition or Addition by Subtraction?

The marketplace continues to see the emergence and growth of a number of Agile scaling frameworks. The Scaled Agile Framework (SAFe), Large Scale Scrum (LeSS), Scrum at Scale (S@S) and Disciplined Agile Delivery (DAD) are just a few of the prominent entries in this space. Next year will see organizations continue to adopt these frameworks as they seek to realize the benefits of being more responsive to change at a global level.

Current thoughts are mixed regarding how to achieve this goal. While many of the current frameworks (e.g., SAFe) advocate adding structure and layers, some like LeSS believe that true organizational agility can only be achieved by removing items from the organization that don’t directly contribute to the delivery of customer value. This debate is even more nuanced when the idea that some additional structure might be necessary on a temporary basis while the organization is being transformed. In 2022, we expect to see continued debate as to what steps are actually necessary to achieve agility on a global scale.

Agile Outside of Software

The Agile movement was born in the software development space. After all, it is called the “Manifesto for Agile Software Development”. In recent years, other domains have adopted a number of the values and principles that define the Agile movement in attempt to accrue its benefits. For example, there is currently an Agile Marketing Manifesto as well as efforts to bring an Agile mindset and some of its practices into education.

This trend will accelerate in 2022 as events such as the pandemic, natural disaster, and political and economic shifts remind organizations that the only constant is change.

Data Science

Increasing Application of Artificial Intelligence and Reinforcement Learning

We often hear that Artificial Intelligence is one of the trends that will change the world. This past year certainly validates that sentiment, and 2022 will continue to see evidence of this powerful trend.

But what is actually meant by the term “Artificial Intelligence”? Technically speaking, AI systems typically incorporate a special type of machine learning known as “Reinforcement Learning.” These specialized programs allow a computer to learn the same way a human does, through experience with trial and error.

In 2016, DeepMind (an Alphabet company) made headlines when its computer program AlphaGo beat the world’s best Go player, a feat many previously thought was impossible. The AlphaGo program worked through Reinforcement Learning methods, where the computer played thousands of games against itself, learning the best tactics to win the game of Go.

Fortunately, Reinforcement Learning has applications beyond just board games. In 2021, DeepMind released AlphaFold 2, a computer AI program that can accurately predict protein folding structures, opening up new possibilities in drug discovery and medicine.

The application of AI and reinforcement learning will definitely be a trend to keep an eye on, as the progress has increased exponentially.

Huge Strides to Continue with Natural Language Processing

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is the use of machine learning models to interpret raw text data, such as Wikipedia articles or even code written by humans. Traditionally, NLP technology has been used for classifying text articles into categories or sentiment analysis of reviews. By simply training NLP models on existing text data sets, the models can learn the topic of a new article, or whether a movie review is positive or negative.

Huge strides have recently been made in the capabilities of upcoming NLP technology. In 2020, OpenAI released “Generative Pre-trained Transformed 3,” commonly known as GPT-3, which has the ability to generate text that is nearly indistinguishable from that written by a human. GPT-3 was trained on hundreds of billions of words that were scraped from the internet and is even capable of coding in CSS, JSX, Python, among others.

In 2021, OpenAI further expanded on the idea of an NLP model that can code, by releasing Codex and Github Copilot. These futuristic state-of-the-art models can not only automatically complete large portions of code, but they can also accept a description of what the code should do and produce the corresponding code. Check out this Codex demo launch video.

The future is already here! We are definitely looking for exciting new applications of NLP continue to make headlines in 2022.

Leadership

Attracting & Retaining Talent – But Different Than Before

Attracting and retaining talent is the most prominent topic of conversation we’ve observed in media related to leadership, specifically attracting and retaining talent in a COVID-changed environment. It’s not clear anyone has permanently figured out the solution as the situation is still in flux, so we have listed key points that we hear leaders weighing in with in their decisions related to remote work and its implications for finding quality team members.

Let’s start by making a broad assumption (that certainly can still be refuted) that some jobs cannot be done remotely (e.g., printing and shipping) and some jobs potentially can be done remotely. Below are the key topics of debate that will continue to shape this discussion in 2022:

Job Equity: Is it fair to the people whose roles cannot be done remotely and who have to come into the workplace that others can work at home? As this question is discussed topics related to safety, expenses, commute time, flexibility, teamwork, fairness all come into play.
Productivity: Even if jobs can be done remotely, what is the level of productivity of remote work versus work in the office? As this question is discussed one hears that people work longer hours at home because they are not commuting, that people are more productive at home because they can focus and not be disturbed. On the other hand, you hear others say that people are less productive at home because they are distracted by non-work items and that people are less productive at home because they are not being watched. You also hear discussion of managers’ ability to manage in-person versus remote team members.
Cultural Impact: Even if a job can be done at home, is it better for the organizational culture? As this question is discussed topics related to collaboration, mentoring, camaraderie, organic problem solving and innovation, and work-life balance come into play.

These debates and questions will dominate leadership conversations in the coming year as leaders continue the challenge of finding and hanging on to top talent.

Jason Cassidy, PMP, is CEO of Educate 360, the parent company of Project Management Academy, Watermark Learning, and Pierian Data. – training partners of choice helping organizations improve organizational efficiency and effectiveness, increase cross-functional alignment, and drive results to help meet and exceed business performance goals.

Andrea Brockmeier, PMP, is Director of Project Management at Watermark Learning, an Educate 360 partner company. Dr. Susan Heidorn, PMP, CBAP, BRMP is Director of Business Solutions at Watermark Learning. Jose Marcel Portilla is Head of Data Science at Pierian Data Inc., an Educate 360 partner. Mike Stuedemann, PMP, CST, is a Scrum-Focused, Agile Agnostic Coach and Trainer at AgilityIRL and partners with Watermark Learning for Scrum courses.

Join our webinar on December 10 to hear our contributors talk about these trends and answer questions.

Evolving PMO: How the pandemic is shaping future PMOs

Written by Bill Allars on October 12, 2021. Posted in Articles.

The pandemic has taught everyone that anything can happen, and change is always just around the corner. While every industry has been reeling from its impacts, the pandemic has given us the opportunity to make our project management offices more resilient and sustainable. To stay relevant and fulfil its role as a strategic command centre, the Project Management Office must evolve.

5 key changes of an evolving PMO

Here is a quick summary of the top 5 changes the pandemic will bring to the Project Management Office (PMO):

Shift towards more Agile methodologies
Increasing demand for effective communication and collaboration tools
Acceleration of digital transformation through technological advancement
The necessity for remote leadership skills
PMOs becoming pivotal for crisis management

Let’s do a deep dive of each major change.

1. Shift to more Agile methodologies

Agile has been the ongoing buzzword of project management for years, though previously limited to software and ICT development spheres. The pandemic has shown us that the global market is not only extremely competitive and fast-paced, but also filled with uncertainties that could strike at any moment.

With its high value orientation, emphasis on self-organisations, quicker reaction times, more efficient management of digital programs and customer experience focus, adopting Agile methodologies allows organisations, not just software companies, to tap into the flexibility they need in times of crisis and change.

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If organisations need to be more Agile, their PMOs will need to spearhead the change. Becoming an Agile PMO is more than just changing practices and tools, but also involves changing mindsets and cultures. PMOs will need to transition from their traditional policing role rooted in rigid processes, old bureaucracy and traditional tools to make room for flexible processes, lean management and Agile-centric tools.

Though organisations may want to become more Agile, there is no one-size-fits-all approach to solve all your problems. In fact, many other methodologies have emerged and built off Agile philosophies to suit specific contexts. The PMO will be tasked with identifying, adapting and implementing the approach that suits their organisations needs best.

2. Increasing demand for effective communication and collaboration tools

The pandemic has brought about massive workplace changes, specifically in regard to remote working, and it is change that is likely to stay. A 2020 Gitlab research on white collar professionals discovered that only 1% of respondents wanted to return to the office with the vast majority preferring remote working. Additionally, 59% of the respondents indicated that remote working improved their output.

To accommodate this trend, the PMO will need to invest in improved cloud-based technology adoption to enable seamless communication and cross-team collaboration of geographically dispersed teams. Though many software and PPM systems have online collaborative capabilities, not all PPM software is equal. Collaboration platforms like Asana and Monday have become increasingly popular, but many such services lack integrative capabilities that allow all your project related activities to be collated in a single hub.

3. Acceleration of digital transformation through technological advancement

Digital transformation is nothing new, but the pandemic has greatly accelerated the pace of digital transformations. KPMG global survey shows that the pandemic has accelerated digital transformation strategy in 67% of respondents, with 63% increasing their digital transformation budget. McKinsey research shows that companies were adapting to digital changes at much faster rates than what was imagined pre-pandemic, particularly in regards to remote working, online customer services and the adoption of advanced technologies into operations.

As companies begin to better grasp the value of digital transformation and understand the speed it can be implemented, it will become a forefront agenda for PMOs of the future. PMOs will play a critical role in not only introducing practices, tools and processes catered to digital workflows, but also building the right cultures to minimize the resistance to change.

Additionally, as digital integration becomes more advanced, PMOs will much sooner than later be faced with the challenge of adopting and integrating artificial intelligence into their operations. It may seem like a daunting task, but AI is set to bring extensive changes to the project management field and effective PMOs cannot afford to be left behind.

4. The necessity of remote leadership skills

Relationship building and clear leadership are critical ingredients for a successful PMO. But relationship building is one of the hardest challenges of remote working. How does the PMO maintain their position as the strategic hub of an organisation if they are not able to build the relationships to lead effectively?

The pandemic has clearly shown how unequipped teams have been for remote working. A Terminal survey shows that 77% of respondents had no prior experience of leading remote teams and 30% of organisations had no long-term strategy for remote working post-pandemic. With trends showing that remote working is not going anywhere any time soon, PMOs have to adapt quickly and effectively to keep teams organized, focused, and motivated.

While remote working has been said to improve productivity, there are still many challenges such as teams feeling disconnected, employees experiencing higher rates of burnout and lack of morale. PMOs will have to work on building up their digital communication and leadership skills to compensate for the lack of opportunities to build informal relationships with team members.

5. PMOs becoming pivotal for crisis management

“In my view the PMO, in times of uncertainty, holds the whole project management ‘enterprise’ together, via process, communication and guidance. Companies that don’t have a PMO will see a lot of chaos and fumbling around in their projects” – Bob Patrino, Principal IS Project Manager

In times of crisis, employees will turn to the PMO to be their guiding light and have the proper processes and tools in place to support them. Crises like the pandemic are only going to increase in frequency and if PMOs limit themselves to their traditional policing role, they will quickly lose their relevance. PMOs have the opportunity to become a critical asset in an organisation’s crisis management strategy and have the capacity to lead teams strategically, align stakeholders, prioritise tasks effectively and ensure resources are allocated to the most critical projects.

PMOs are changing permanently. Are you ready?

Like the rest of the world, it is tempting to wish we can all ‘go back to how it used to be’. It is becoming more apparent than ever that going back may not be an option and a ‘new normal is here to stay. However, the PMO may be changing for the better and it is only those who prepare for the future who will reap its benefits.

About the author

Bill is a PMO consultant with 20+ of experience in Project and Portfolio Management, Project Administration, Risk Management and Process Redevelopment. He is currently working as PMO consultant with pmo365 and providing his expertise to the leading business.

5 Reasons to Consider pmxboard Full Agile Management Board Set for your professional and private life!

Written by Brad Egeland on September 22, 2021. Posted in Articles.

1.The first and the only full Agile and Lean Management Set! The most comprehensive Agile Management Set in the world

Everything you would need in order to build your complete Agile process is in one package. There is no other product on the market that you would get and build your entire Agile Board without needing to purchase additional items. The set comes with pre designed but also customizable full magnetic board, which weights just above 6 lbs, and comes with 84 pieces of magnetic cards set in order to build your Kanban, Scrum, or any other type of Lean Board. Moreover, the set comes with accessories such as tripod to locate your board, special magnetic card markers, board markers as well as cleaning sets.

2. Pre designed Full Magnetic Lean Board comes with the set

The special board comes with a beautiful design, it is fully magnetic, high quality and increadibly light! You can snap your magnetic cards anywhere on the board, you can also use it as a white board and write on it. The columns are already created for you however, you can also customize the headlines via using the extra empty headline cards that come with the set, so you do not need to use the pre-defined column headlines if you do not want to.

3. Full Magnetic Agile Management Card Set comes with the set!

The magnetic card set that comes with ore-designed magnetic board has everything in it. The magnetic set consists of below items;

60 Task Cards in three colors to help with grouping (Gray, Green, Yellow). 20 cards of each colors. The Task Cards have designated spaces to write the headline of the task, a bigger space to write down details and also quick recognizable circle on the right bottom either to write task owner’s initials, or due date of the task, ow both.

10 Blocker Cards. Which Lean Board would not need blocker cards? But, pmxboard blocker cards are not only visually distinguisable easily, also you can drop quick notes on it. They spap directly on the board, or even on other magnetic cards. So, it gives great flexibility to identify risky items on the overall board easily.
10 Details Cards. Whenever and wherever you need to capture more details and you need more space, detail cards come in handy. They can be easily paired or stacked with task cards, or can receive blocker cards on themselves.
4 Empty Headline Cards. These headline cards provide great flexibility to customize your board if you need to change the pre-designed headlines on the board. You can easily snap them on the existing headlines on the board, and change the column headline to your specific need.

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4. Gives three options to locate your board and your board can be mobile!

One of the things I like most with this set is that the board is not like any standard board on the market which most of them are bulky, difficult to handle, and you have to find a permanent place on a wall to put your board. Unlike these standard boards, because the materials they used on this board (high density EVA) provides great weight advantage, just over 6 lb, it basically gives you the freedom to move your board around easily and make it mobile if you do not want to hang it on a wall, which hanging on a wall is is also an option if you like to. The set comes with a tripod, so you can literally put your board on this tripod and move it around easily, even with one hand because of its leight weight. The magnetic power between the board and the magnetic cards on it are strong enough and they stay intact during normal maneveours.

5. You can use this set over and over for many projects!

All the pieces in this set have gone through realibility tests in order to make sure that they are reusable, and the quality does not downgrade easily over time. You can wash the magnetic cards, clear off completely, same with the board, and they will stay as if they are new. They used eco-friendly UV printing on the products, and it provides the highest quality and durability for this kind of products.

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Using an Agile Waterfall hybrid to manage a major Collaborative Computational Project

Written by Layla Mirmalek on September 1, 2021. Posted in Articles.

Collaborative Computational Project Number 4 (CCP4) in Protein Crystallography was set up in 1979 to support collaboration between researchers working in structural biology, and to assemble a comprehensive collection of software to satisfy the computational requirements of relevant UK groups.

Demand gave rise to the CCP4 program suite, now distributed to academic and commercial users worldwide.

Taking a lead role

Scientist Eugene Krissinel from the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) Scientific Computing Department has taken on the core lead of project managing the vast volumes of collaborative software development, and its distribution for CCP4. In leading the core team he says, “I am responsible for CCP4 infrastructure, software distribution, and everything which goes from CCP4 to users, including some program development.”

CCP4 is a well-known and respected open collaboration with a very good reputation and large numbers of users – upward of 25,000 worldwide.

The project now has a mature agile management style with an Executive Committee to drive targets, and two working groups to advise on software requirements and user needs.

Challenges of the project

“The Software suite grew very fast and now the size and complexity is comparable to Linux distribution, and is managed by only a handful of people.” Eugene Krissinel.

One of the first things that Eugene needed to address when he joined the CCP4 team in 2009 was the size issue, as the volume of software to be distributed was more than was manageable by the resources and technology of the time. The software suite had reached such a size that the ways of managing software were purely technical – from archiving, compilation, testing, to packaging and distribution – and this was taking all the effort from the core team. It was a considerable issue so his first goal was to suggest a more efficient way of handling the software.

The team adopted technologies used by Linux maintainers, which enabled them to develop automatic software management pipelines and introduce hot updates, so CCP4 updates just like an operating system.

This is something Eugene designed, and it took about 3 years to implement to a stage where it was an established modus operandi for the team. ”It took quite a sizeable development of new graphical installers, updaters and new pipelines,” he said. “Those pipelines are big because we have about 10 million lines of code.”

With such a huge infrastructure, there is a lot to manage, and a way forward was to automate certain processes. Eugene explains; “Regression testing of our software is an ongoing problem but now it’s completely automatic and happens every night.”

There is a great deal of communication and collaboration to achieve the mutual goal of the project. The CCP4 team links research community and developers, making sure that users’ feedback reaches program authors. It is a considerable size of code that needs distributing so this takes a lot of time and effort.

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Management style

Eugene uses an agile style of management to organise the project. He used a coarse-grained plan, and tracking progress of tasks within projects is achieved through regular group meetings. The usable outputs are discussed with stakeholders, allowing the team to have a continuous stream of deliverables.

Eugene highlights the importance of good working relationships and mutual respect. His management style is to give team members assignments that play to their strengths as well as matching the project’s needs. The team has a diverse set of skills and interests and together they successfully deal with a wide variety of tasks; from scientific problems to very technical problems or mundane jobs to very creative jobs.

Benefits in the project are identified by monitoring updates for the software. If liked by the research community they will use the software and this will be shown in download stats and start-up stats for the programs. This is collected only from academic users (not industrial users) and the information is completely anonymous.

The theory is that if academics are happy, then industry will listen. The more industry uses, the more sustainable the funding is for the project. The number of industrial licences is a crucial indicator for financial health. Currently CCP4 sells on average 140 industry licences per year, and that number is growing.

Feedback is key and the CCP4 team has always been very strong on communicating with the community directly. They support the CCP4 ‘bulletin board’, a mailing list of about 8000 subscribers who post between 20 – 100 messages each day. They also have a dedicated line for submitting bug reports, which are frequent and dealt with quickly. “If this line is completely silent I would personally worry because there are always bugs. If nobody is talking to us about them or thinks we can’t be reached, that becomes a big problem,” said Eugene.

The project is a great example of agile management because it’s focused on using regular direct discussion between the development team and the users, with 2 week continuous delivery slots. There is also a strong emphasis on stakeholder communication and reciprocal respect within the industry.

CCP4’s success can be attributed in part to generous industry support. Its roots are in drug research and its industrial customers are all big pharma companies. By purchasing software licences, these companies provide important funding to ensure the continuity of the project. Other funding comes from competitive grants, and STFC’s Scientific Computing Department provides the overall setup and home for the project.

Improvement going forward

Despite its success, the team is always trying to improve. Going forward Eugene would like to see an easier process for supporting short-term activities.

A little bit more autonomy in financial terms would benefit the project processes, especially in terms of purchasing hardware. This can be slowed by the many channels necessary to make purchases.

This project, like so many others, has been impacted by COVID-19 as less spending has occurred and the funds don’t carry over to the following financial year automatically.

Rising to challenges is something Eugene and his colleagues take in their stride, though. CCP4 is hugely successful – something that is borne out by its longevity, its ever-evolving software, its growing community of users and high demand from industry. Importantly, CCP-4 software was used to solve the first COVID-19 virus structures. Taking the agile approach for managing the project has given it a further advantage of increasing the dialogue bandwidth between the development team and the users.