Prioritization and reporting

This page describes the types of projects we have, the general principles of how we prioritize them, and how we can show where our time goes.

Summary table

Size

Duration

Priority

How to select

When starting

When finishing

Garage

~hour

1 (short and impactful, shares knowledge internally)

Try to help everyone

Record in garage diary with unit

Small

days

3 (growing out of garage)

Try to help everyone, within reason

Record in garage diary for each visit

Medium

<1 month

4 (unfunded, filler)

When we have time, in proportion to unit priorities.

Make issue in rse-projects issue tracker, decision in weekly RSE meeting.

rse-projects issue tracker updated

Large

month+

2 (funded so get priority)

If there is not enough time for all requests, in proportion to unit priorities.

Same ^

Same ^

Types of projects and other terminology

  • Size Garage (G): the smallest support, handled within the daily garage. A few hours and not scheduled, they are handled as people come to garage. Entered in the garage diary, but not the rse-projects tracker.

  • Size Small (S): <= 1-2 days.

  • Size Medium (M): <= 1 month.

  • Size Large (L): > 1 month. These are generally paid by the projects themselves.

  • Dedicated funding is when a project or unit pays 100% of the salary of a RSE. They get priority for all of that RSEs work, but they are still supported as a team and we always try to take the best person for each job.

  • Retainer funding is when a research group sets up funding to be used for various projects within their group. These projects take priority, but since we don’t charge for waiting, we can’t reserve time.

RSE staff that are fully funded from a certain project out outside the system of this page, and work on the projects as decided by their funders.

Prioritization between units

See Participating units. In general, we want to make sure that we do medium and long projects in proportion to the incoming funding from various units. This is handled at the weekly RSE meeting, where we look at projects and decide what should be taken on. The RSE team leader will guide these decisions.

Each garage session (and equivalently, meeting of projects too small to have a rse-projects issue) should be tracked in the garage diary with the unit, and this goes into a yearly report. Each medium/large project is recorded in the rse-projects issue tracker with its size, and this goes into the yearly report.

Prioritization between sizes

Garage projects usually get priority, because they are quick, impactful help and serve as a way for our team to share skills internally. Whoever is available will help (it can often be the same person over several days). We help these regardless of the Aalto unit of the customer, but if we notice big imbalances forming, we’ll start to do something about it. Customers can continue returning to the garage, but they need to keep track of the work.

Small jobs are garage projects which have slightly grown so that we work on them outside garage, but the customer is still in charge of making sure things move forward. We do these when we have time, as decided by each RSE themselves during garage.

Medium projects are big enough they must be planned and scheduled, making sure to balance between units. These are funded with basic funding, so the unit basic funding guides us. Often garage or a planning meeting is used to make the plan, then it’s approved and scheduled during a weekly RSE meeting, then we’ll get back to the customer.

Large projects, being paid by a particular group, usually get priority. However, often time there is downtime during these, which are used for other projects.

Some research groups provide “retainer” funding: long-term funding without a specific L-size project. Their funding is used for whatever S and M projects come up, and those S and M projects get a much higher priority and the same person helping each time (of course, depending on the urgency of the project itself).

There are two main steps in our prioritization:

  • General discussions during the weekly team meetings.

  • Each RSE’s evaluation of each project, based on their knowledge of the work, the time they have, and what the benefit will be.

Per-project prioritization factors:

  • Self-evaluation of usefulness and importance by the researchers.

  • Benefit to open science and broader strategic impact.

  • Long-term impact to research (for example, improved skills or use of existing infrastructures and tools).

  • Priority for units which provide funding and their strategy.

  • Diversity and balance, including diversity goals.