1st Board meeting
10 May 2017
Porto, Portugal
Actions
| Actions | Comments |
|---|---|
1) Up2U objective and key results (OKRs) must be defined, all work packages should have their own OKRs linked to the Up2U OKRs and also cascaded down to the task level. Progress should be measured. |
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| 2) Board should meet face-to-face at least once a year. Board should attend the MT meetings at least quarterly to get some first-hand insight into the work of the MT. |
Weekly MT meetings happen on Wednesdays at 14.30 CSET/CET at https://trello.com/b/UzePwMTd/wp1-project-management-and-external-liaison |
| 3) The Board encourages the MT and the WP leaders to achieve more cross-pollination between WPs and better communicate downstream. Not only Trello but private Wiki spaces are needed per WP to collect consolidated information. |
The Board encouraged all the WPs to organize face-to-face meetings to discuss the critical issues. |
| 4) The Board encourages all the partners to comply with the quarterly financial reporting practice. |
Action on Peter to chase for the missing data. |
| 5) Peter to start the process of reviewing and rearranging budget for partners. Partners' contributions to WPs as well as travel budgets must be fixed. |
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| 6) WP5 leaders to organize a meeting with the Board members and explain/clarify the purpose and structure of the SMC. |
As it was agreed in Porto, today, the WP5 leader Stefano, the WP5.1 task leader Mary, the available Board Members (Gabriella, Eli, Vicente) and Project Coordinator myself had a video call to clarify the structure and role of the Subject Matter Committee. STRUCTURE 1. The board members agreed with the current structure of the SMC. There is a permanent committee (voluntary people for the whole duration of the project) reporting to the Board. There are national sub-committees (temporary people for a fixed period of time or a certain task to complete) reporting to the permanent committee members. 2. Any project participant can propose candidates for both permanent and sub-committees. The Board appoints the permanent committee members and then the permanent committee members decide on the national sub-committee members. 3. The committees can have both internal and external people. 4. By "external" we mean people who has no formal task or specific role/contribution to the project other than his/her SMC participation. This is regardless of the person's affiliation (i.e. someone can be considered "external" and still working for a project partner origination, if nothing to do with the project otherwise). - There was a concern raised by the board about the current large number of internal people on the list of permanent SMC candidates! Agreement: It was agreed to reduce the number of internal people on the permanent committee by: - allowing only one person per partner organisation, preferably working on the pedagogical filed. - putting the members with formal role in the project to sub-committees - invite external people, preferably with strong links to national ministries of education ROLES 1. The role of the SMC is twofold: it acts as an advisory committee to the Board and the MT members and it also serves a subject matter committee looking after the pilot countries, training programmes and other pedagogical aspects of the project. 2. It was agreed that both roles can be fulfilled with one SMC. No need to create a separate body, just clarify the role of the members. MEMBERS 1. It was agreed to try and appoint more "external" people to the permanent SMC, in general. 2. It was agreed to keep Stefano (WP5 lead) on the permanent SMC ex-officio acting as the link to the WP5 activity for SMC support. 3. It was agreed to remove duplicate candidates per organisation and people with conflicting roles from the permanent committee. They can participate in the national sub-committees. 4. It was agreed to consider three new (external) candidates to the permanent SMC. Names and CVs to be circulated for appointment by the Board via email. ACTION on Mary. 5. It was agreed to leave 1-2 vacancies always open to be able to consider new members at any time (as the Board and the MT see fits). |
Completed
The Board members have been re-invited to attend the MT meetings.
On-going action.Agenda
| Agenda items | Notes |
|---|---|
| 0. Reporting. The Management Team, practically the project coordinator (myself) should report to the Board quarterly. My idea is to agree on a simple email template that I'm going to use for regular reporting with items that you need to know. Trello should be your tool to dig deeper into the details. | - Up2U objective and key results (OKRs) must be defined, all work packages should have their own OKRs linked to the Up2U OKRs and also cascaded down to the task level. Progress should be measured. - ACTION on Peter to propose a tool and procedure to do OKRs. - Board should meet face-to-face at least once a year. Board should attend the MT meetings at least quarterly to get some first-hand insight into the work of the MT. - The board encourages the MT and the WP leaders to achieve more cross-pollination between WPs and better communicate downstream. Not only Trello but private Wiki spaces are needed per WP to collect consolidated information. |
1. Review the technical progress, time line, and deliverables. There were 3 ethics deliverables, 1 dissemination and 1 training plan "online document" submitted to the EC in the 1st quarter (Jan-March). Other deliverables and milestones are approaching in M6 M8 and M12. WP2 and WP6 might be low on resources. WP8 should kick in soon. | - WP1 management issues are on the agenda of the Board. - WP2 should restructure the website focusing on (policy) impact and users. Project related administrative data can go on the Wiki. - WP3 needs improved leadership. ACTION on Peter to coach Ilias. Other board members may help. - WP4 seems to have enough resources, Allan should delegate more, build team and coordinate the group of developers from OU, PSNC, IUCC, TELTEK, ownCloud. - WP5 should provide input via survey, subject matter committee, and better engagement with academic/research experts form the community. - WP6 signalled resource and engagement issues. They have to communicate better what they are doing and where they need help. ACTION on Peter and Gabriella to address the resource issues and give more leadership. - WP7 should come up with a pilot schedule taking into account the technical roadmap of WP3 and the pedagogical aspects/requirements of WP5. Coordinate the school engagement activities in the pilot countries. - WP8 has just started to kick-off. |
2. Financial overview. Ideally, the project coordinator should see the financial progress on the partners quarterly. This is what I requested at the GA meeting and Amsterdam and I got no comments. It turned out though that the quarterly financial reporting is difficult for some partners. Only 8 partners provided data out of 18 by the extended deadline. I need the Board to revise this practice and make a decision. Maybe escalate to the GA again. Up2U Total Project Costs Summary - M03 Mar 2017.pdf Issues to be discussed: - Only 10 partners provided data out of 18. TAU officially complained about the informal quarterly reporting practice. We need a decision how to address the situation. - Compared to the linear progress in Q1 (based on 10 partners data) both the personnel costs and the other costs (incl. travel) are under average: 91% personnel cost and 80% other costs in total. But there are some anomalies... - PSNC claimed 3x higher personnel costs compared to linear progress. I think this is because of their expensive manager. If they continue doing so, they will run out of money soon. We have to address this issue with PSNC. - Partners are generally low on travel budget. The situation with NTUA and ISEP needs to be solved soon, could also cause cash problems. There are some warnings at FCT and KIFU too. In contrary, the personnel costs are only claimed at about 40% in most of the cases. The solution might be to shift budget from PM to Other. Maybe later in the year. | - The Board encourages all the partners to comply with the quarterly financial reporting practice. Course of ACTION: a) Peter to distribute the Q1 status to the GA members and advocate the usefulness of quarterly reporting. b) See if the situation improves in Q2. c) If no improvement, the Board can escalate the issue to the GA and the GA has to vote luckily in favour of the quarterly reporting practice that will then be mandatory for all partners. |
3. Rearrangement of travel budgets. In general, the project budget is low on travel for every partner. Some partners already signalled this. We have to decide how to handle the issue. Some budget from GÉANT can be redistributed to partners. Also some partners travel more than the others. We need to see how to consider this in a fair way. | ACTION on Peter to clarify what decisions can be made by who: a) on moving budget by partner from one WP to the other WP b) on moving budget by partner from PM to travel c) on moving budget by coordinator from one partner to the other partner - Revisit the travel budget issue at the next Board meeting. |
| 4. Appointment of the SMC members. There is a list of SMC candidates at https://up2university.eu/smc-members/ Officially, the Board has to appoint the permanent committee members. | - The Board was not able to made an informed decision on the actual members. - ACTION on Peter to ask WP5 leader to organise a meeting with the Board members and explain the purpose and structure of the SMC. |
5. Any other business. Please, let me know. | n/a |