MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE CAN DO for SCIENTISTS Four Tools That Help Researchers to See the Big Picture, Especially When Working in Collaborative Groups

Work / Technology & tools ILLUSTRATION BY THE PROJECT TWINS THE PROJECT BY ILLUSTRATION WHAT PROJECT- MANAGEMENT SOFTWARE CAN DO FOR SCIENTISTS Four tools that help researchers to see the big picture, especially when working in collaborative groups. By Anna Nowogrodzki

n January 2019, NASA announced that its Teske, who works at Carnegie Observatories protocols. The tagging functions of these Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite had in Pasadena, California. “The way that Trello tools allow managers to assign tasks to team discovered a planet about three times the organizes information seemed very much in members. If used well, they can make teams diameter of Earth. The planet, orbiting a line with the type of information we wanted to more efficient and minimize frustrations such dwarf star 16 parsecs (53 light years) away, capture,” she says, and it’s worked well. as forgotten tasks and duplicated work. Iwas found using sophisticated equipment Popular project-management tools for In short, project-management tools and the including the satellite itself and the Magellan II research teams include Trello and Jira, both managers who use them “connect the details telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in from the company Atlassian in Sydney, with the high-level goals”, says Tracy Teal. As Chile. But its discovery also relied on a more Australia, as well as Asana and GitHub project the executive director of Dryad, a non-profit prosaic tool, says astronomer Johanna Teske: boards, both in San Francisco, California. repository for open data in Durham, North the project-management software Trello. These tools are more than simple to-do lists. Carolina, she uses several such tools. The five-university consortium that They help teams to see the broad view of a oversees the telescope uses Trello to track project, allowing users to create and complete Management experience and manage the queue of astronomical targets tasks, meet deadlines, capture detail-rich At the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT in that different teams want to observe, says notes and provide templates for common Cambridge, Massachusetts, computational

Work / Technology & tools biologist Beth Cimini manages a small a project manager who goes through the includes standard tasks such as booking flights consultancy group within a larger team run by team’s Jira to-do items and pings a message and hotels, and preparing presentations. This cell biologist Anne Carpenter, which focuses on to people if tasks aren’t done, Teal notes. “The feature is particularly useful, she says, because automated image analysis. Carpenter’s group social connection between the tool and the the travel card stays on her Trello board until uses project-management tools to handle tasks team is a person who consistently makes that she remembers to file for reimbursements. ranging from keeping track of the team’s over- connection,” she says. In her previous position at The Carpentries all direction to experimental design, Cimini in Oakland, California, an organization that says — the latter thanks to a Trello template “If used well, these tools teaches coding and data workshops, Teal and that automatically pre-populates notes her co-workers used Asana templates to ensure with standard operating procedures so that can make teams more that they would remember to add essential laboratory members don’t forget key steps. efficient and minimize components such as context, recurring tasks “It’s definitely reduced the amount of time frustrations.” and milestones to every project. And they we spend reproducing what someone else had a standard template to ensure that they has already done,” Cimini explains. Her own completed all the tasks in the right order to team uses Trello and GitHub project boards to Whichever project-management tool be able to launch their workshops. juggle their clients’ needs. “It would be hard for you use, ease your team into it to avoid Project-management tools typically each person in our group to have ten different overwhelming them, says Rafael Carazo support plug-ins to enhance functionality. projects a year” without them, she says. Salas, who began using Trello after Trello, Jira and Asana can all integrate with the Project-management tools tend to have a coronavirus-related shutdowns to aid code-sharing site GitHub, for instance. But for common visual style, called a Kanban board. communication and assign tasks in his developers and scientists who already spend a This is divided into columns, called lists, with stem-cell differentiation lab at the University lot of time on the site, GitHub project boards multiple cards pinned to them to represent of Bristol, UK. And don’t feel you must restrict are particularly appealing, say Teal and Cimini, different projects, protocols or topics. Users yourself to tasks, he adds. Salas has started whose teams both use this tool. can make multiple lists (for example, ‘To do’, using Trello to share literature with his GitHub is a collaborative platform for ‘In progress’ and ‘Done’), create individual team, tagging members on articles that are people who develop software. Project to-do items (either in the app or by sending especially relevant to them. The literature boards organize GitHub’s social elements — an e-mail to a dedicated account), tag team- keeps Trello interesting, and the tags alert issue trackers, comments and code updates mates to assign tasks, and drag the cards from people until checking the tool becomes a called pull requests — into a Kanban-like board to board as their status changes. Many habit, he says. “Make it reach out to them,” says board. “It’s this quick graphical way to under- tools can also display a timeline or calendar Salas, “instead of making it a static board that stand how behind I am,” says Clair Sullivan, a view, and provide apps for use on mobile they need to actively go and check.” machine-learning engineer at GitHub, who devices. is based in Breckenridge, Colorado. When- But there are differences, and most tools Project toolbox ever a programmer flags an issue (such as a offer both free and paid tiers, with different For the Magellan II telescope collaboration, bug report or a request for a new feature in incentives for paid accounts. “It’s worth Teske says, it is Trello’s nested structure that the software), the software automatically exploring the different tools a bit and allows the team to manage its users’ needs. slots it into the board’s to-do column. As the finding the right ones for you,” recommends There’s a board for each of the five institutions, team addresses these requests with finalized José Sánchez-Gallego, an astronomer at which is visible only to that institution, and a code fixes, GitHub’s built-in Actions tool the University of Washington in Seattle. separate board for the administrative team automatically marks the issues as done. “Personally, I prefer tools that do one thing but that is filled with astronomical targets for each Sánchez-Gallego spends a lot of time do it well, rather than tools that allow you to do slot of observing time. When a scientist wants using GitHub when he works with the team many things but become more cumbersome.” telescope time, they create a card on their that maintains Marvin, an open-source Sánchez-Gallego actually uses multiple institution’s board, which the administration data-visualization tool. But for his work tools for project management in his day-to-day team then moves to the observation board. managing the Sloan Digital Sky Survey help- work. These include ZenHub for manag- Cards can include notes, PDFs and data files, and desk, he favours Jira, which his team has found ing GitHub issues for the Sloan Digital Sky any other useful information. An archive board to be more accessible for people who do not Survey telescope in New Mexico; Jira for serves as a record of everything that has been have experience in developing software. overarching project management, hardware done. “I think people find it intuitive,” Teske says. Observers and technicians at the two observa- issues and input from users; and OmniPlan for But small teams can also benefit from such tories his team supports use Jira to log tickets creating timelines and tracking time. “I like to tools. For Cimini’s five-member team, Trello’s when something goes wrong. “What I find look for simplicity and good overall design,” integration with Tick, its time-tracking and most useful is the ability to create personal Sánchez-Gallego says. “I also prefer apps that billing software, has proved particularly filters,” he says. This lets him see only the can work offline over web apps that only work useful to automatically track the amount of tickets that are most relevant to him. when connected to the Internet. And I prefer time they’ve spent working on projects that No matter which management tool you tools that don’t require me to share too much are billed separately, or to allocate how much choose, engage your team early in the personal information.” time to spend on specific tasks. (Asana also decision-making process, Teal advises. Think With any project-management tool, the integrates with Tick.) about their needs and how they spend their most difficult part is establishing a routine Pre-formatted boards called templates are time — for example, on GitHub or in their e-mail for using it, says Cimini. “It’s easier to enforce also useful, because they provide a starting inboxes. Otherwise, your project-management doing that when it’s collaborative,” she says. place for common tasks. In Cimini’s group, tool risks becoming “sort of like another “My collaborative Trello boards stay more up every time a team member kicks off one inbox”, she says — just another thing that’s to date sometimes than my personal one.” of their standard experiments, they use a hard to remember to check. Appoint a manager to run the tool at a template so they can be sure of completing team level, Teal advises. The Data Curation every step in the protocol, she says. Cimini Anna Nowogrodzki is a journalist in Boston, Network, of which Dryad is a partner, has has also created a template for travel, which Massachusetts.