Introduction

The Trust and Identity Incubator is a novel way for dealing with new and potentially disruptive topics in the GEANT project. The incubator concerns itself not only with technical aspects, but may also include other topics around service development and improvement, like businesscase development, or e.g. improvements in privacy or data protection. The Incubator does not however operate services. This is the domain of the T1 activity in the project. Formal decisions in respect to the PLM process are left to the service owners in T1.

This page describes the development process used in the Incubator. The incubator engages with a number of different topics, typically four to six, in parallel. The development process is based on the Scrum development methodology, but is using it in a more lightweight form. 

Contents

Roles

Principal Investigator (Magnum)

Magnum is the person mainly responsible to plan the activity and the contents of the product. 

Main Incubator Board (MIB)

This board consists of many MIBs, who are senior members of the trust and identity community. They will evaluate the results of each Sprint and provide feedback to the activity.

Activity Team (A-Team)

The members of the A-Team are the ones doing the real work within the activity.

Scrum Master (SM)

The Scrum Master supports the activity by facilitating task communication, organizing meetings and allocating resources. Their major task is to keep organizational overhead away from the team and resolve impediments, so that the A-Team is able to focus on their actual work.

Mentor / Incubator Activity Mentor (IAM) / Activity Advisor (AA)

The Mentor is an experienced advisor who helps Magnum to plan the product and upcoming work by providing their technical knowledge and high-level view on the activity.

Activities

Plan Backlog

The Scrum Master, Mentor (optional) and Magnum meet at the start of each sprint to discuss the remaining work to be achieved within the Incubator cycle. New work items that were discovered will be added to the Activity Backlog as well as remaining items from the last Sprint.
Although it is fine to document future work, it should also be considered that it is possible to implement the backlog during the remaining time.

Actors: Magnum, Scrum Master, (Mentor)
Input: Trello Template
Output: Activity Backlog (Trello)

Sprint Retrospective & Plan Sprint

The Sprint Backlog prepared is summarized by the Scrum Master who provides the major action items of the next sprint to the A-Team, Mentor and Magnum. The purpose is to plan the activity for the upcoming sprint.
It is necessary that each team member estimates the amount of time she will contribute to the activity during this Sprint. Since internal tasks may reduce the average time one can contribute to the tasks, which is absolutely ok, it is import for the planning to provide a honest assessment.
The team evaluates the remaining Activity Backlog and assigns work items according to the working time available for the Sprint.

Actors: Mentor, Scrum Master, A-Team
Input: Activity Backlog, Estimated FTE, Feedback from MIB Sprint Demo
Output: Sprint Backlog (Trello) consisting of assigned action items (Trello cards)

Implement

The Team implements the agreed Backlog over the course of a Sprint.

Actors: A-Team
Input: Action items (Trello cards)
Output: Result (e.g. Software Release, Concept, Business Plan, ...)

Weekly Standup Meeting

The team meets once a week for a short meeting to report work done, work for the next week and impediments. The Magnum should provide a short status report which can be provided to the SC.
Note: This meeting should be scheduled Thursday or Friday to discuss an entire calendar week. Furthermore, it should be done for all projects similarly to enable a project management meeting at the end of the day.
Actors: Scrum Master, Magnum, A-Team
Input: Trello cards
Output: Impediments, Project Status Report, Add dates to calendar in confluence

Sprint Demo & Review

The team presents its Sprint results to the SC, which provides feedback for the next Sprint. Software projects have to show a demo and business projects prepare some slides.
Note: The meeting should take place for all project at once. This could be combined with an “all-hands” meeting by which at least one representative of each project stays for the entire session. This way we keep the SC as well as the other projects informed.
Actors: A-Team, Scrum Master, Steering Committee
Input: Sprint Results (e.g. Software Release, Concept, Business Plan, ...)
Output: Feedback

Meeting Overview: