You’re Live… Now What? How to Build a Support Infrastructure to Maximize your Investment in Evergreen

Emily A. AlmondPINES Software Development Manager

Georgia Public Library Service

What’s Your Driver?

TIME •How long to define requirements?•How long to Develop X?

RESOURCES •How much $ •How many developers? •FT? PT? Contract? •What’s going on in the open-source community?•What’s the cost-benefit of monitoring development there?

SCOPE •What is the end goal? •How do we define functional?

Roles & Responsibilities – Who Has the D?Using the RAPID method to determine who does what

PINES TEAM EQUINOX

• Schedule Site Visits and Reports

• Set prioritization of PINES development issues

• Monitor allocation for development to insure

accurate reflection of PINES library needs.

• Updates to PINES page

• Evergreen-related policy, process, software

updates to PINES libraries

• Updates to PINES documentation

• Govern Help Desk

•Define allocation of funds per category of

development and/or support.

•Answer Help Desk Tickets (working with the PINES team @ GPLS).

•Work with Emily to prioritize development.

•Develop software according to priorities communicated by the PINES team.

Defining Scope

Define Approach to Software Development: (see handout)

•Software Development LifeCycle vs. Product LifeCycle

•Triage issues:•Policy | Process | Software

•Software:•Criteria for Defining Issues•Informs where issues belong in development cycle

Communicating Scope

Pulling together issues from emails, listserves, site visit logs, and existing docs and spreadsheets:

•High-level graphical timeline

•Timelines filtered from spreadsheet for use by working groups

•Updated spreadsheet to Directors on regular basis

Time to Build Support Infrastructure

November 2008 March 2009Define Approach to Software Development: (see handout)

•Software Development LifeCycle vs. Product LifeCycle

•Triage issues:•Policy | Process | Software

•Software:•Criteria for Defining Issues•Informs where issues belong in development cycle

PINES team adopted development approach, resulting in:

•New Development Roadmap•New Help Desk Workflow•Testing/Training Environment•Holds Cleanup•New Communications Model---

Training Cluster live as of 02.09.09.

Time for TestingTook release through it’s paces on the Test System:

Time for TestingDeveloped Report Card on Major Features / Fixes:

Tapping Existing Resources

November 2008 March 2009Working Groups Mission:

•Establish a baseline on how the specific module/functionality actually operates in the existing version of Evergreen.

•Discern the difference between process, policy and software solutions.

•Document optimal module functionality within a future Evergreen release and develop a list of requirements.

•Become the de facto module testing group, through which all new development would be filtered from the PINES library side of the development process.

Able to discern quickly that there was a break between understanding of software and following of process.

Removed Cap on Holds Pull Lists & Implemented a HOLDS AMNESTY

RESULTS:December 2008 – 4500 Unfilled HoldsJanuary 2009 – 890 Unfilled HoldsMarch 2009 – 20 Unfilled Holds

Communicating to Stakeholders

November 2008 March 2009Site Toolkit

Site Visit Logs: (see handouts)

Resolution Tracker: all issues assigned to individuals on PINES team for resolution and/or follow-up

11.11.08 – Athens11.12.08 – Southwest Georgia11.13.08 – Dougherty11.13.08 – Ohoopee01.27.09 – Lee County02.16.09 – Mountain Regional

All issues either filed through Help Desk or on development spreadsheet.

Several reported issues resolved in Release 1.4.

Communicating to Stakeholders

Utilize public PINES page as primary communications channel for:

•Software Development Timeline•Site Visit Logs•Working Group Reports•PINES Updates•Resources•Training Materials