Software development is an essential activity for many scientific teams. Modeling, simulation and data analysis, using team-developed software, are increasing valuable for scientific discovery and engineering. Many teams use informal, ad hoc approaches for managing their software efforts. While sufficient for many efforts, a modest emphasis on team models and processes can substantially improve developer productivity and software sustainability. In this presentation, we discuss several light-weight techniques for managing scientific software efforts. Using checklists, policy statements and a Kanban workflow system, we emphasize techniques for managing the initiation and exit of team members, approaches to synthesizing team culture, and ways to improve communication within a team and with its stakeholders.

Presenter

• Mike Heroux (Sandia National Laboratories)

Presenter Bio

Michael Heroux is a senior scientist at the Center for Computing Research, Sandia National Laboratories, in Albuquerque, New Mexico. In his career, Michael has worked on various aspects of High Performance Computing, going back to Cray Research in the early 90’s. At Sandia, he works on new parallel algorithm developments for problems of interest to Sandia and the broader scientific and engineering community. Michael leads the development of Trilinos, which provides state of the art solution methods in a state of the art software framework, the Mantevo project, which focuses on the development of Open Source, portable mini-applications and mini-drivers for scientific and engineering applications, and the (Interoperable Design of Extreme-scale Application Software-ECP) IDEAS-ECP project, which is dedicated to engaging with scientific software teams to identify and promote practices that improve software productivity and sustainability.