[Cesg-all] Charter Development Template For Comments

[Weiss, Howard]

Amen - let me second Erik's comments because they were exactly the comments I was going to make in examining the spread sheet.  As a WG chair, I would LOVE to be able to set a hard set of milestone (kilometerstone) deadlines to accomplish various stages  of a project.  However, as Erik states, we don't control those resources.  An action may be assigned to a WG member who then puts the work on the back-burner because 'day job' activities consume all of his/her time with little or none left over for CCSDS activities.  Even worse, in many cases WG members are only funded for a tiny fraction of their time (e.g., 5%) to support CCSDS activities.  

 

Regards,

 

Howie Weiss

 

From: cesg-all-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org [mailto:cesg-all-bounces at mailman.ccsds.org] On Behalf Of Erik Barkley
Sent: Thursday, March 22, 2007 7:27 PM
To: Craig Day; CCSDS Engineering Steering Group - All; CCSDS Management Council
Cc: CCSDS Secretariat
Subject: Re: [Cesg-all] Charter Development Template For Comments

 

Craig,

Taking a look at the project tabs, it strikes me that an important piece of information is lacking.  In order to assess a project relative to its overall charter I believe it is necessary to state the resources committed by the various agencies.  Mandating 36 month completion cycles is all well and good, but stating that a project will complete in 14 months, for example, via some assertion of milestones without seeing the supporting manpower information to achieve those milestones (okay, kilometerstones) complicates assessing project viability.  Furthermore, not all kilometerstones are created equally in terms of effort required.  Therefore it may be of interest to include estimated level of effort information to compare against the committed resources assigned by the agencies.     So that management has an accurate picture of progress, it may be worthwhile to have this kind of information updated periodically.

Best regards,

-Erik.

At 3/22/2007 10:53 AM, Craig Day wrote:



CESG and CMC Members,

After our meeting in Colorado Springs we've been doing some work to revise
the charter development template we originally presented. Let me first say
that it is my understanding that the overarching goal of this project would
be to simplify and standardize the development of WG charters while at the
same time gaining some insight into the document development process so that
we can better track progress of individual documents. I would very much like
to hear your thoughts on whether this is the appropriate goal to be aiming
for.

Probably the biggest comment to the original templates we showed in Colorado
was that the development of a charter and the proposal for projects should
not be separate actions. We took this into account in developing a new
approach.

Attach please find an Excel workbook that contains a number of tabs. The
first tab is the up-front information about a WG that we traditionally
capture in a charter. Each of the other tabs contains information specific
to the group's various projects. Perhaps the biggest change to our current
process is that we are requesting a document development schedule for each
project. The table is currently populated with a number of milestone tasks
which would allow the CESG and CMC to better gauge progress toward
completion for each project. The date columns would be left blank for the
project leads to complete. We can certainly debate the tasks that are
currently listed if you feel there is something missing.

The attached workbook is currently populated with data from the SOIS
Application Support Services WG charter to attempt to illustrate how this
tool might work. The dates I have entered are completely notional and do not
represent an accurate schedule. I also didn't fill out a project sheet for
each book. You may get a macro warning upon opening the file. I'm not sure
how to get rid of that but there is nothing malicious about the file.

Right now we are requesting your input on the content of these sheets. Do
you think we are capturing the right information? The implementation of the
tool will most likely not take the form of an Excel workbook but rather an
online input tool. We could then link the charters to the different CWE
sites and allow for real-time updates that could then be sent to the CESG
and CMC for approval as necessary. With the project timeline information, we
would be able to create a work program status report that would indicate the
progress toward established metrics for all of our projects.

We look forward to your feedback on this template so that we can move
forward. If you have any questions on the attachment, please do not hesitate
to ask.

Best Regards,
Craig

-- 
Craig Day
CCSDS Secretariat Office
Tel: +1-703-264-3849 € Fax: +1-703-264-7551
Email: craigd at aiaa.org




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