Kuali Research Administration (KRA)
Kuali Financial System (KFS)
Project Management
Andy Slusar
KRA Project Manager
Cornell University
Jim Thomas
KFS Project Manager
Indiana University
Agenda
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KRA/KFS Guiding Principles
Productivity Tools
Collaboration & Communication
Project Staffing
KRA/KFS Integration
Open Source Misconceptions
Guiding Principles
• KFS based on Indiana’s FIS
• KRA based on MIT’s Coeus
• Scope Statement is the developments team’s
“contract” with functional stakeholders
• Functional Changes are approved by the
respective Functional Council
• Technical Standards are governed by the Kuali
Technical Council (KTC)
Guiding Principles
• Maximize commonality of business practices
• Make configurable as much as possible given
time and resource constraints
• Burden of proof falls on advocates for change to
show benefits exceed costs
• All changes subject to “The Reality Triangle”
The Reality Triangle
Scope
Time
(KFS
Functional
Council)
(Project Mgr)
Resources
(KFS Board)
Context
Collaboration
Collaboration Tools
Project Organization and Coordination
– Confluence from Atlassian (wiki pages for
documentation, collaboration, etc)
– JIRA from Atlassian (task tracking)
– Sakai (document sharing, email archive, etc)
– Omniplan, MS Excel and Project for project
plans and Gantt charts
– Resource planning sheets
Collaboration Tools
A Walk Through Confluence
Collaboration
Requirements for success
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Communications
Governance
Commitment
Respect
Trust
Community
Communication
Problems on your project?
Who you gonna call?
Kuali Man!!
Communications
Communication Plan
Communications Tools
Meetings
Communication Tools
Choose the appropriate medium
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Face to face
Video Conference/Skype
Telephone
Chat
Email
Meetings
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Board
Functional Council
Technical Council
Project Leadership meetings
Developer meetings
Code Reviews
One on ones
Face to Face meetings
Focus groups
Informal
Effective Meetings
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Have an agenda
Record Action Items
Track and follow up
Formation of ad hoc subgroups
Project Resources
• Role definitions
• Development Team Sourcing
– Tendered Resources
– Onshore consulting
– Offshore consulting
• Backfill for functional resources
• Training
KRA/KFS Project Differences
• Project differences
– Coeus relationship vs. IU FIS
– Team size/project scope
– User community differences
– Rice Evolution/Extraction
– Tool Differences
• KRA Functional Team uses Confluence
• KFS Functional Team uses Sakai
KRA/KFS Integration Team
– Define integration points
– Static Data
• Person Data
• Organization Data
– Internal
– External
• Cost Elements
– Transactional Data
• Proposals
• Budgets
Open Source Misconceptions
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Part time developers
Not industrial strength
Not well tested
Hap-hazard governance
No documentation
Kuali Community Source
• Full Time Dedicated Development Teams
• Dedicated Functional Resources
• Built for 24X 7 reliability and built to be scalable for use
by the largest institutions
• Intensive QA/Testing process
• Structured and well documented governance process
• Extensive functional and technical documentation
• Partner Institutions dedicated to the success of Kuali!
• Commercial Affiliates available to provide expertise
How are we doing?
How will we measure “success”?
• Are we delivering working code that
provides functionality that meets our SMEs
expectations?
• Are we meeting our project deadlines?
• Do we have successful implementers?
Sound like fun?
Want to get more involved?
Do you have experienced Java Developers?
Do you have functional expertise?
or
Join the Kuali Partners Program (details at
http://www.kuali.org/about/partners.shtml)
KFS Project Management
Questions?