Goals for FY2003

Hi Level Goals

Academic Computing:

• Participate in the evolution of specific strategies and projects to implement the new Academic Computing directions.
• Participate in the 1 on 1 computing initiative.
• Lead the Athena UNIX Platform Team with particular attention to:
• Personal growth and professional development of team members.
• Continued progress on a shift to platform-independent and broad applicability efforts.
  
• Shepherd efforts to:
  • Get a Microsoft Word work-alike onto Athena.
  • Dramatically improve the reliablity of the Athena-supported Web Browser.
  • Unify Athena Unix efforts with other computing infrastructure efforts.
  • Investigate Win32 applications on Linux Athena
  • Improve Athena to be viable on Laptops
    
• Codify the reqirements for Athena vendors.

DSpace:

• Provide ongoing design review and guidance with a particular focus on federation and rights management.
• Assist with strategic relations between IS and The MIT Libraries.

Summary Achievements for 2003

Built understanding at Director level of tradeoffs between Mozilla and Netscape. Shepherded delivery of major browser upgrade for Athena, and built coordination between Athena Release team and Software Release Team on browser work.

Took ownership of Linux support on laptops. Got systems qualified after gap betwen IS's promise and reality was discovered. Initiated Athena Disconnected Operation project to help deliver Linux on Laptops to bridge gap in resources for stock Red Hat support. Helped shepherd baseline support of stock Red Hat through Red Hat Update service.

Mentored two team members as they departed my team to new primary reviewers, and mentored the primary reviewers through their first MIT Performance Review process.

Helped a team member shift out of UNIX-centric work to a combination of UNIX and Windows work.

Helped find a way to meet ambitious budget cutting goals without laying someone off. Kept team organized and productive through stressful and uncertain budget situation.

Helped team continue to shift focus from UNIX-centric and Athena-centric offerings to customer-centric offerings.

Did direct outreach to many Athena end-users.

Continued to provide an advisory role with DSpace.

Specific work deliverables:

I plan to divide my time between the 5 areas below working on the tasks associated with them. The tasks are listed in order of roughly decreasing priority.

DSpace:

1. Act as liaison if there are problems with IS infrastructure.
   DONE -- I helped resolve issues with system maintenance, network help, and migration of facilities from MIT to HP locations.
2. Attend at technical meetings (Weekly DSpace meeting, and various design reviews held through the year.)
   DONE
3. For the following areas, review issues, requirements, designs, and implementations. Write critiques. Propose appropriate changes.
   • design objectives
   • security
   • rights management
   • user interface
   • system infrastructure and maintenance
   • business model
   • federation (multiple DSpace sites cooperating)
   DONE

Academic Computing:

1. Lead Athena UNIX Platform Team
   DONE
2. Participate in strategy setting and architecting of the evolving 1 to 1 computing model.
   PROGRESS -- My team delivered on the promise MIT made to support Linux on laptops with certification and bug fixing efforts. We also worked to try and leverage Athena appropriately on the laptop platform.
3. Visit computing facilities of sister schools and produce critiques that describe similarities and differences in customer base, services, and infrastructure. Identify areas where we can learn. Suggest where we have something to offer.
   NOT DONE -- Vijay and I never codified this into action.
4. Keep informed of the ongoing status of the HP infrastructure project. Look for synergies with our expertise, and needs. Identify possible areas of conflict with an eye to preventing or resolving them. Produce critiques.
   DONE -- I kept informed, and worked to make the Athena Disconnected Operation work be a part of this larger effort.

Champion Athena Unix:

1. Produce web page that presents the Athena vendor and infrastructure requirements.
   NOT DONE -- Other urgent matters and fast-changing requirements precluded successful conclusion of this work.
2. Review costs and benefits of Athena way. Produce white paper.
   PROGRESS -- Costing is under way. I need more help from financial and business modeling experts in IS.
3. Respond to Sun overtures to create Commercialized Athena through Sun. See that appropriate discussions with appropriate people take place to determine if this is a project we should pursue.
   PROGRESS -- Filed three proposals with two different arms of Sun. Still working on getting replies out of Sun.
4. Respond to queries about Athena Model.
   PROGRESS -- Have responded to a couple people, but a couple queries are outstanding.

Lead Athena UNIX Platform Team:

1. Perform ongoing planning, resource analysis, and resource allocation in cooperation with Delivery Council.
   DONE -- Originally there was some question as to whether or not it would be appropriate for me to be on Delivery Council. I made a special effort to demonstrate my usefulness. I am now recognized as a full member, and as one of the facilitators of good ideas there.
2. Produce monthly status reports.
   DONE
3. Produce web pages, memos, meetings, and perform other outreach to make the work/workings of the team visible/transparent.
   DONE -- IT Partners outreach, IS Insider outreach. MANY web pages.
4. Mentor team members personal and professional growth.
1. to be happier and more effective.
2. to align with MIT
3. to be more entrepreneurial.
DONE
5. Maintain the Athena UNIX Platform Team projects page.
   DONE
6. Take certain specific roles for certain specific projects (in order of decreasing priority):
   1. Hardware Diversity: Mentor amb's leadership, and choice of tasks.
      DONE -- Hardware Diversity project is successfully ended.
   2. Star Office: contribute a couple hours a month to performing project tasks.
      • revise APSE project pages -- DONE
      • Periodic check in on Sun Star Office product status. -- DONE
      • Periodic check-in on OpenOffice.org status. -- DONE
      • Occasional outreach to Sun and OpenOffice.org. -- DONE
   3. Win32 on Linux: Take this to Discovery council, and find out if it is to become a real project. If so, help get it started with a bona fide sponsor, leader and resources.
      DONE -- Led a contractor to do exploration and then fed contractor's findings to Discovery Council.
   4. Disconnected Operation: Take the role of champion of this effort. Evolve it into an appropriate role for the Athena UNIX platform team for 1 to 1 computing.
      DONE
   5. AUI follow-ons: See that appropriate sub-projects are identified, taken to Delivery Council, and acted upon as Delivery Council dictates: as tasks performed by release team. by creation of a project team to do the work, or decision NOT to do anything.
      DONE -- GNOME 2 update by Release Team, and some student projects.
   6. Netscape 6: keep informed of Todd Belton's ongoing status in doing this work.
      CHANGED -- Traveled a rocky road to Mozilla in Athena. But we now have a more functional and more robust browser, and the UNIX Athena platform is integrated into the broader Institute browser work.
   7. Kerberos Package: keep informed of Miki's ongoing status with regards to this work.
      NOT DONE -- other more urgent work took precedence.
   8. AFS Package: keep informed of the status of this work. Possibly find someone to do it.
      CHANGED -- We point people at openafs.org

Other:

1. Personal Change work:
   (Goals: less anger, more calm, more satisfaction, fewer dead ends.)
   1. Practice objectifying hot buttons
   2. Practice exploring new opportunities.
   3. Practice prioritization and maintaining a strategic focus.
      
   DONE!

Goals Archive

• Goals for FY2002
• Goals for FY2001