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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

Collaboration

  • 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
  • Chat Client - Non-gradable communication between students and instructors/TAs
    • Will implement APIs from TokBox

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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

Thus, it is my opinion that keeping the Nucleus team working on Messaging and Notifications, Collaboration tools like Chat and A/V Boards, and AIR/MT4 Reader maintenance would provide the greatest value overall.

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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
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