Put Higher Education First

Check Egos & Institutional Biases at the Door!

Ailish Byrne (Indiana University)

Copyright Ailish Byrne 2007. This work is the intellectual property of the author. Permission is granted for this material to be shared for non-commercial, educational purposes, provided that this copyright statement appears on the reproduced materials and notice is given that the copying is by permission of the author. To disseminate otherwise or to republish requires written permission from the author.

Kuali

• Non-profit organization• Sustain / evolve administrative

software• Geared towards Carnegie class

institutions• Open, modular, distributed systems• Reduce IT cost through collaboration

The Partners• Cornell University• Indiana University• Michigan State University• San Joaquin Delta College• University of Arizona• University of California (Davis & Irvine)• University of Hawaii• rSmart• IBM• Huron Consulting

Challenges• Disparate priorities• Cultural differences• Role definition / expectations• Institutional bias: “cliques”• Blurry reports-to relationships• Reward system• Remote collaboration• Size-related distractions

Governance• Board, Functional Council, & Technical

Council• One vote per institution• Non-voting member to convene and manage• Board provides strategic direction and

resolves conflict• Functional council established priorities

and requirements for cross-module issues• Technical council directs architectural

decisions and ensures adherence to IT policy and security

Methodology

• Base system is premise– Workflow (IU’s Enterprise Workflow)– Financial System (IU’s FIS, EPIC, etc.)– Research Administration (MIT’s

COEUS)

• Deadline driven• Early and often unit and functional

testing, along with continuous regression testing

Prioritization Process

• Functional Council– Functional council voting member assigns a

number 1-X to X enhancements– Averages are calculated and enhancements

ranked accordingly

• Technical Council– Majority rules– Technical project manager works with

functional council chair to address policy concerns and prioritize other technical council recommendations

Workers• Functional

– Chair• Subject Matter Expert (SME)

– Business Analyst (BA)– Sub-committee members

• Technical– Project Manager (PM)

• Development Manager (DM)– Lead Developer (LD)– Developers

Meetings• Face-to-Face

– Quarterly Functional Council– Yearly All Developer– Biannual Technical Module Team

• Video Conference– Weekly Functional Council– Weekly Functional Module Team– Biweekly Technical Council– Weekly Development Manager– Weekly Technical Leads– Biweekly Developers

Common Toolset

• Issue Management: Jira• Documentation: Confluence• Supported development tools and

versions (configuration management)• Communication Tools: dedicated

video conferencing bridges, suite of mailing lists, IM: Jabber, published directory of roles and contact information

Handoff• SME meets with subcommittee weekly to

document requirements and resolve issues

• SME collaborates with other SMEs on cross-module requirements

• SME and DM meet weekly to hand off requirements and prioritize bugs and enhancements

• DM collaborates with other DMs on cross module requirements, priorities, and timelines

Developer Management

• DMs request assistance from one another’s resources

• Code review collaboration• Resolve issues early as part of SME-DM

handoff• Preemptively, clearly, and concisely

communicate with entire development team• Pass on praise to responsive board members• Require respect of issue escalation chain of

command

Conclusion• A concrete foundation and an efficient

governance are making our goal of developing first-class, administrative software for higher education institutions within limited IT budgets a reality.

• New challenge: Cross-application collaboration while still adhering to dealine-drive methodology

kualitestdrive@oncourse.iu.edu