Translating best practices in traditional software project management to research software development
Both software development and scientific research are notorious for taking more time than naively expected. Research scientists typically have little training in project management, and many project management practices were developed in business or engineering contexts and include assumptions that do not work well in research. One result is that software development is often under-supported in research proposal work plans, and the quality of the output suffers. Chase will focus on providing tools and techniques for generating realistic and useful software project estimates that account for the unique circumstances of scientific research.
Chase is an astronomer, programmer, and entrepreneur. He is the Founder and CEO of Million Concepts, a company that provides research software engineering services. He is also a founding board member of OpenPlanetary, an international non-profit that promotes the use of open research workflows in planetary science.
Selected resources
Open Planetary Lunch Talk: Strategies for Research Software Estimation (video) Software Project Management Best Practices Document: “A practical guide to research software project estimation” HPC-Best Practices Webinar: Effective Strategies for Writing Proposal Work Plans for Research Software
