2022-02-09 All-hands meeting notes

General updates

• JW –

  • Somewhat-more-formal project planning is underway. We’re hoping to roll this out for most big projects, starting with ones that are just beginning, and maybe eventually extending to “retrofit” current efforts. For examples see

    • Project Plan: Adoption of Interchange backend as export machinery for ForceField.create_openmm_system

    • (Complete) Protein-Ligand Benchmarks Automation via Folding@Home

  • Biopolymer release delayed. Will go alpha → RC – (1 month) → stable. I’ll announce when the alpha is ready for use.

• KCJ – Confluence reorganization

  • I’ve archived several spaces and made new ones that more closely follow the logic of how we work.

  • Important - Check out the “Useful Tips” page for best practices

  • If you need a new template, feel free to make one. I’ve made most people admins so you can try making templates yourself.

  • use labels on your pages, but try to use existing labels where possible for maximum utility

  • Be careful about what you put in your personal spaces, since they’re harder to find than pages in shared spaces. Don’t use blog posts in most cases.

Project management overview

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1yOESpVsMtBARRFp6n7v1ZuzMt-yk4XJP/edit?usp=drive_web&ouid=101652648996542449563&rtpof=true

• projects are temporary endeavors to deliver on a single goal; goals are components of the organization’s overall strategy

• setting clear goals is key to a project’s success; lacking clear goals often results in project failure to deliver anything

• oriented on OKR (objectives and key results) basis in order to assess project health, ensure forward progress toward goals given allocated resources

• project manager will work to protect scope of project where possible, as well as

  • be able to give reasonable time estimates to stakeholders, manage expectations

  • keep costs within reasonable bounds

  • identify measures of quality of project outputs

  • ensure appropriate allocation of resources to projects, manage resources across multiple projects, avoid cannibalization of resources between projects

• MG – Some of those boxes are more challenging than others. How is that handled? Would some of those items have breakdowns of their own?

  • DN – Yes, when suitable we’ll break those down into more detailed structure.

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Mobley questions

1. An update on alternative functional forms/work being done there; @dannycole and crew are you up for doing that soon? (Pick a month: These are, I believe, the third Wednesday of each month at 7:30 am Pacific, so the next would be Feb. 16 or March 16)

   1. DM – Resolved on slack, DCole will present at March ad board meeting.

2. Plans for virtual sites in connection with protein force fields… I’m not sure who could update on that/whether plans are at all concrete yet. @Simon Boothroyd do you have thoughts? I believe the infrastructure is ready but we’ll probably need to get a protein FF out first and then begin working on testing how virtual sites effect it, so it may be that we could just give something high-level as to what the major stages would be. @Chapin Cavender any thoughts?

   1. DM – Defer to another meeting when SB is present