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Team Nucleus

November 2016 Update

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Current Workstreams

• AIR/MT4 Reader (inherited from Tandem7)
  • Art and Image (AIR) Reader - existing reader
  • MT4/Vanilla Reader - existing, incomplete
  • CAS Narrative Plugin/Renderer - PoC only, needed for Compound Learning Activities (CLA) 
• Communications (new work started 10/1)
  • Messaging/Notifications
    • Platform wide messaging system utilizing new Messaging Center 3.0 on AWS (ConnectYard)
  • Ask For Help
    • Initially for MTQ
    • Extension of Messaging/Notifications 

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Future Workstreams

• Audio/Video Boards - Gradable activities with collaborative audio/video discussions
  • TokBox is preferred 3rd party partner for voice/video services
  • Proof of Concept previously created by WL team

• Discussion Forums - Gradable activities with analytics to allow for auto-grading
  • No 3rd party partner yet identified

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Current Team

Developers (Primarily Front-End/JavaScript)

• Reader
  • Chris Kuiawa (Reader Tech Lead)
  • Sanjay Anbalagan (FTE)
• Communications & Collaboration
  • Brendan Reen (C&C Tech Lead) - Leaving Friday
  • Francis Lichtenberger (Contractor)
  • Olajide Ogundipe (FTE)

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Current Team

• Reader
  • QA - Iryna Abukhouskaya
  • BA/SA - Rohan Sridharamurthy
  • UX - Tim Brown
• Communications & Collaboration
  • QA - Joby Joseph
  • BA/SA - Stephanie Sferrazza
  • UX - Tim Brown

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Points of Concern

The Only Constant is Change

• ​Team has had 7 Engineering Managers in 12 months
• With Workflow, direction was changed mid-stream from Polymer to React
  • Correct decision, poor timing
• Team recently transitioned off of Workflow to Reader/Communications & Collaboration
• Direction concerning future work unclear
  • Reader, Ask For Help, World Languages, MTC++, etc.

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Points of Concern

The Incredible Shrinking Team

• Due to attrition, promotion and division, the Nucleus team has gone from 10 developers in June to 4 developers as of November 4th
• Open Reqs exist to hire new team members, but we're finding it really hard to find new developers
• Loss of Brendan Reen will have a great impact on the rest of the team, in terms of both velocity and leadership

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Strengths

Dynamic, Mature, Well-trained

• While the team has shrunk, team maturity is high
• Thanks to the direction shifts, the team is experienced at handling dynamic situations and can shift quickly
• Great communication with Sarah, well-integrated
• All members of the team attended the recent Advanced React Training 
• When able to focus on a specific end-goal, velocity has been above average
• We all genuinely like each other!

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Resource Needs/Wants

Full Stack Team Needs

• Java specialists for work with SOA/CAS
  • Tracy Snell
  • Babu Muthupandiyan
• CAS Front-end Specialist
  •  Wilson Cheung (50% allocation)
• Backfill Tech Lead (to replace Brendan)
  • Will be challenging to identify
• Dedicated UX specialist (nice-to-have)

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Other Needs

Clear, consistent direction

• What to do about Reader?
• Communication/Collaboration seems to be high priority, but potential shift to World Languages?
• Confusion about workstream priority between Sarah/Amber and Casey/Jared (i.e. Discussion Forums vs. A/V Boards)
• Could this team be of great help in implementing MTC++ given our experience with MTQ Workflow?

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The Ask: Can we deliver?

Overall: YES! (but with a few caveats)

• If Discussion Forums remain a priority above A/V Boards, the product will need to bought, not built, and integration will have to be relatively easy
• TokBox will need to be solidified as the RTC partner
• Large context shifting for team will have to stop
• Identified resource needs will have to be hired quickly with an effective onboarding process or transferred
• Continued constant communication with Product (Sarah) will be absolutely essential

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Overall Direction

• A common messaging and notification component is absolutely needed across platforms, especially for MTC++
• Collaboration tools are what World Languages are planning to demo this month (specifically A/V Boards)
• AIR/MT4 Reader (and associated services like Annotation Service, MT4 StudyHub, etc.) are still in need of attention

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In Conclusion

• We, luckily, have a great open two-way dialog with Product related to the pieces we're working on
• Within our team, direction from Sarah is clear and we are able to quickly move
• We have a small, but strong, team that will need to be replenished to meet expectations
• More than ever, clarity in focus and future plans is essential to ensure employee satisfaction and achieving goals
• For GPT as a whole, we need to figure out a way to reduce the churn, both in focus and in retention