1 / 86

Are We Nuts ??

Kuali Systems: By, For and Of Higher Education EDUCAUSE CAMP: June 28, 2007 Portland, OR Barry Walsh. Are We Nuts ??. “Building enterprise software alone is really hard”. “Building it with others is really, really, really hard”. Brad Wheeler.

betty
Download Presentation

Are We Nuts ??

An Image/Link below is provided (as is) to download presentation Download Policy: Content on the Website is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use and may not be sold / licensed / shared on other websites without getting consent from its author. Content is provided to you AS IS for your information and personal use only. Download presentation by click this link. While downloading, if for some reason you are not able to download a presentation, the publisher may have deleted the file from their server. During download, if you can't get a presentation, the file might be deleted by the publisher.

E N D

Presentation Transcript

  1. Kuali Systems:By, For and Of Higher Education EDUCAUSE CAMP: June 28, 2007Portland, ORBarry Walsh

  2. Are We Nuts ?? “Building enterprise software alone is really hard” “Building it with others is really, really, really hard” Brad Wheeler

  3. We Don’t (and Won’t) have the IT Resources We Need to Reach Our Institutional Potential IT in Higher Education doesn’t have a Money Problem…We have a Coordination Problem Excerpted from “Leading Beyond the ICT Conundrums for Scholarship 2.0” EDUCAUSE Australia 2007

  4. Community Source Projects “Community source describes a model for the purposeful coordinating of work in a community. It is based on many of the principles of open source development efforts, but community source efforts rely more explicitly on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members than some open source development models.” …. from www.sakaiproject.org

  5. Community Source Projects “Community source describes a model for the purposeful coordinating of work in a community. It is based on many of the principles of open source development efforts, but community source efforts rely more explicitly on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members than some open source development models.” …. from www.sakaiproject.org

  6. Why Would a Trend Stop Short? Historical Trends with Open Source Applications Moodle; Sakai; Kuali SAP; PSFT/Oracle; SCT; Blackboard ??? Web/Application Servers Apache; Tomcat; Zope WebSphere; BEA; Oracle DBMS MySQL; Ingres; Postgres DB2, Oracle, SQLServer Operating Systems FreeBSD;Linux; MVS, Solaris, DEC, XP

  7. IU FIS Current Release: 47.8May 31, 2007 2 of these 47 ..‘disruptive’ • Shut down of system for extended period (> few hours) • Major expense to campus (technical or functional) • Forced business process changes • significant retraining Release 1: July 1, 1994 Release 27: June 10, 2000

  8. And your point is? Decomposed (Non-Monolithic) Software Suites Best of Breed ‘Services’ Open Software Solutions ?? vendor Value Propo$ition$ ?? Loose Coupling

  9. Not just Financials Student ?? Endowment Human Resources

  10. KFS (Kuali Financial Systems) • IU FIS as baseline • $2.5m Mellon grant to IU • $5.2m from investing partners • User Centric: usability from initiation • PM from IU • Comprehensive • Any Carnegie Class; Community College to R1 • e.g. Indiana University • 2 R1 campuses • 6 smaller campuses • Best practices-->Internal Controls • Kuali Rice

  11. KFS Investing Partners • Started with Six Institutional Founding Partners • NACUBO and The rSmart Group are Founding Partners

  12. KRA (Kuali Research Administration) • MIT Coeus as baseline • $1.5m Mellon grant to IU • $2.0m from investing partners • User Centric: usability from initiation • PM from Cornell • Pre- and post-award • XML based grant agency interfaces • XML based FIS interfaces • Kuali Rice

  13. KRA Founding Partners • Five Institutional Founding Partners • Others considering investments

  14. KE (Kuali Endowment) • Likely based on IU Foundation system.. Delphi; • No Mellon grant; • SOA…interfaces • No lead school yet • Kuali Rice

  15. KE Founding Partners • Currently two schools • Two more are seriously evaluating • 18 month effort

  16. KS (Kuali Student)* • Not based on existing system; • No Mellon grant (yet); • Web Services based; • ‘core’ and ‘edge services’ • UBC leading • Big $$$ * Still Exploratory

  17. KS Exploratory Partners* • Currently five institutions exploring…more will join; • Seeking Mellon support; • AACRAO…supportive • Five year effort • $1.0m/year for five years * No firm commitment declared yet

  18. Kuali HR/Payroll • An itch that needs to be scratched; • Lead school..investment pool; • ‘edge services’ initially • Interfacing with existing ERPs?

  19. KR (Kuali Rice) • Enterprise class middleware; • Both Kuali and non-Kuali applications; • SOA concepts • Robust systems; • Common enterprise workflow functionality; • Customizable and configurable user interfaces with a clean and locally universal look and feel; • General and extensive notification features; • Focus on building modular (loosely coupled) applications. http://rice.kuali.org/

  20. KR Founding Partners • Four active partners • Looking for a few good men and women!! • Pointy headed stuff • Mostly top-shelf players • Potential impact is very significant for institutions

  21. By, Of and For HE; Private sector? User centric Usability not an afterthought Source code available: No license fee; Perpetual license; Change; Share with others; How is Kuali Similar to or Different from Other ERP Software?

  22. Governance • Kuali Foundation • Ongoing governance • Incubates/fosters other Kuali initiatives • No full time employees yet…minimalist • Kuali Partners Program • Membership based • Commercial Affiliates

  23. Initiative Governance e.g. KRA • KRA Board • Voting member from each Institution • Chair from Indiana • Extended Board • Project Manager (Cornell) • Developers from each Institution • Functional Council (chair from Arizona) • Each school has one institutional vote • Self forming/managing subject matter subgroups • IRB, Proposal Routing, Budget, Compliance, etc. • Prioritizes all work by developers…how?

  24. The Reality Triangle Scope (KFS Functional Council) Time (Project Mgr) Resources (KFS Board)

  25. The Story so Far • Decisions getting made; • Deadlines and commitments being mostly honored; • Collaboration…higher education; • Sacrificing local needs; Has NOT been EASY. Clearly defined: principles; goals; some project structure; processes

  26. KFS Release Schedule

  27. KFS Challenges • Staff in six time zones; • Large numbers of staff • 22 developers…soon to be 26 • Diversity; • Communication styles; • Levels of experience;

  28. KFS Communications • Bi-weekly Board Meeting (used to be weekly) • Weekly Functional Council Meeting • Weekly Development Managers Meeting • Weekly Lead Developers Meeting • Weekly SME Subcommittee Meetings (or as needed) • Bi-weekly Technical Council Meeting • Quarterly face-to-face meetings of Board, FC, and development teams (most important!)

  29. KFS Meeting Protocol • Agendas in advance; • Only when necessary; • Meeting minutes posted; • Document decisions and action items; • Deadlines for decision-making

  30. KFS Communications Tools Reports and documents • Weekly PM Status Report • Weekly SME Subcommittee Status Reports • Meeting Minutes • Specification Documents • Scope Document(s) • Technical documentation – configuration, tools, frameworks, etc. All in Sakai sites!!

  31. KFS Communications Tools Remote Communications • Video Conferencing..always on at each site • Email lists • IM • VOIP (Skype) • Breeze (web conferencing)

  32. KFS Communications Tools Project Organization and Coordination • Sakai (document sharing, email archive, etc) • Confluence from Atlassian (wiki pages for documentation, collaboration, etc) • JIRA from Atlassian (task tracking) • MS Excel and Project for project plans and Gantt charts…mostly one page Excel!!

  33. Lessons Learned…many more to come) • Regular F2F meetings; • Don’t “squeeze” QA; • KISS; • Deadline for decisions. If no consensus in timely manner, vote; • Monitor productivity closely • Specs ready when developers ready? • Are developers making reasonable progress?

  34. Lessons Learned…many more to come) • Technical documentation; • Avoid going “tool crazy”; • Provide opportunities for communication; • Code reviews and Infoshares • Bringing new developers up to speed; • Consistency across

  35. Lessons Learned…many more to come) • Automated unit testing…paying off; • Centrally manage core infrastructure development • Avoid “perfectionist” tendencies; • SMEs • extremely valuable; • most scarce resource….“day” jobs.. • years of expertise that can’t easily be taught to new staff.

  36. I’m Sure this is NOT your Project! Speaking of project plans, with developers, sometimes you have to dig a bit to get under the surface. A slightly exaggerated case …..

  37. Fodder for the Bar conversations The greatest breakthroughs will always begin, to quote Eric Raymond once more, with “one good idea in one person’s head,” and the greatest products will always reach perfection through the concerted efforts of a highly skilled team.  http://www.strategy-business.com/press/freearticle/07204?pg=all The Ignorance of Crowds Nicholas G. Carr, strategy+business

  38. Questions? walsh@indiana.edu http://kuali.org

  39. Kuali Systems:By, For and Of Higher Education EDUCAUSE CAMP: June, 2007Portland, ORBarry Walsh

  40. Are We Nuts ?? “Building enterprise software alone is really hard” “Building it with others is really, really, really hard” Brad Wheeler

  41. We Don’t (and Won’t) have the IT Resources We Need to Reach Our Institutional Potential IT in Higher Education doesn’t have a Money Problem…We have a Coordination Problem Excerpted from “Leading Beyond the ICT Conundrums for Scholarship 2.0” EDUCAUSE Australia 2007

  42. Community Source Projects “Community source describes a model for the purposeful coordinating of work in a community. It is based on many of the principles of open source development efforts, but community source efforts rely more explicitly on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members than some open source development models.” …. from www.sakaiproject.org

  43. Community Source Projects “Community source describes a model for the purposeful coordinating of work in a community. It is based on many of the principles of open source development efforts, but community source efforts rely more explicitly on defined roles, responsibilities, and funded commitments by community members than some open source development models.” …. from www.sakaiproject.org

  44. Why Would a Trend Stop Short? Historical Trends with Open Source Applications Moodle; Sakai; Kuali SAP; PSFT/Oracle; SCT; Blackboard ??? Web/Application Servers Apache; Tomcat; Zope WebSphere; BEA; Oracle DBMS MySQL; Ingres; Postgres DB2, Oracle, SQLServer Operating Systems FreeBSD;Linux; MVS, Solaris, DEC, XP

  45. IU FIS Current Release: 47.8 May 31, 2007 • 2 of these 47 releases were ‘disruptive’ • shut down of system for extended period (> few hours) • major expense to campus (technical or functional) • major business process changes forced by software • significant retraining of users Release 1: July 1, 1994 Release 27: June 10, 2000

  46. And your point is? Decomposed (Non-Monolithic) Software Suites Best of Breed ‘Services’ Non-Proprietary Software Solutions ??Software vendor Value Propo$ition$ ?? Loose Coupling

  47. Question?

  48. Another Question? How about these guys?

More Related