# eRA Project Team Meeting

**Date:** April 23, 2002

**Time:** 9:00 am

**Location:** 6700 B Rockledge, Room 1205

**Chair:** Jim Cain

[**Next Meeting:** May 14, 2002,]{.mark} 6700 B Rockledge, Room 1205

## Action Items

1.  (Patti Rodbell) Print new DEIS organization charts for the Project
    Team.

2.  (Volunteer) Contact Carlos Caban if interested in presenting the
    Grant Folder at the Symposium.

## Agenda Items

1.  **Contractors' Retreat on April 12**

Jim Cain reported on the second meeting between DEIS senior staff and
management-level representatives from the multiple contractors working
on the eRA Project. The objective of the retreat was to build a cohesive
team among groups that are otherwise competitors. At the first retreat,
participants concluded that a good project management plan was needed.
On April 12, Donna Frahm presented the initial draft of the eRA Project
Management Plan (PMP), which was very well received. The third
contractors' retreat will be held six months from now. At that time,
contractors will report on the steps they have taken to improve
communications with one another.

Belinda Seto commented that is often unclear who is doing what. Jim
responded that it is the government's responsibility to provide
direction to contractors. A complicating factor is that about half of
the Task Managers (previously called analysts) are contractors.

2.  **DEIS Retreat on April 18-19**

Carla Flora said that approximately 80 staff attended the all-DEIS
meeting at the National Conference Center at Lansdowne. The theme of the
two-day retreat was "The times, they are a-changin'." During the first
morning, Kalpesh Patel, Donna Frahm and Carla presented vision plans,
which serve as the foundation for the future of eRA. In the afternoon,
staff met with their branches to define objectives, core values and key
tasks. The evening activity was a tribute to IMPAC I.

Day 2 was devoted to branch discussions of perceived strengths,
weaknesses, opportunities and threats. Participants also identified
things they will continue doing and things they will no longer do as a
result of the reorganization. Jim Cain remarked that staff seemed to
react positively to the changes.

3.  **Update on eRA Symposium on May 10**

Steve Hausman reported that 232 persons enrolled during the first two
weeks of registration. The event has been added to the NIH calendar,
posters have been distributed around the campus, and an all-NIH email
has been sent. There will be a reminder message to extramural functional
groups on April 30.

The planning group currently is finalizing logistics. The plenary
address and the presentations on e-SNAP, ECB/QVR and ICSTORe will be
videocast from the main auditorium. The Grant Folder, Closeout and
Population Tracking breakout sessions will be videotaped. Presenters
were asked to provide biosketches, session descriptions and technical
requirements as soon as possible.

4.  **Project Management Plan**

Donna Frahm gave a high-level
[presentation](http://era.nih.gov/Docs/Project_Mgmt_Plan_4-23-02.ppt) to
the Project Team. The initial draft of the plan was distributed for
comments earlier in the month at the Contractor and DEIS retreats.

The purpose of the Project Management Plan is to define eRA management
processes for software development, maintenance and operations
activities. The plan also describes the roles and responsibilities of
the DEIS branches. Goals include ensuring eRA's commitments to the
Steering Committee and the community, monitoring resources to make
certain that they are allocated according to established business
priorities, implementing processes that best serve eRA's complex
environment, and complying with the Capability Maturity Model (CMM), the
industry standard developed by Carnegie Mellon University.

The first step in planning a new project or major enhancement is
developing a business plan. The plan includes a description of the
project, development of a work breakdown structure (WBS), and
preliminary estimates of cost and schedule. Draft FY02 business plans
have been evaluated by Donna (cost and schedule perspective), by Kalpesh
Patel (architectural perspective) and by Bobbi Spitzberg (security
perspective). The Office of the CIO is refining business plan processes
for next year.

Next, Donna discussed the tools that her office will use to monitor eRA
initiatives. Project Central will track schedules and resource
allocation. This product should be deployed at the end of April. The
Oracle Small Business Time Tracking System (SBS) will provide real-time
data on how much each module (or priority) costs. Contractor invoices
now map to SBS categories. In response to Carlos Caban's question, Donna
explained that SBS captures hours for those paid by the project. It does
not include time invested by volunteers such as Advocates.

5.  **Status Reports/Announcements**

> *eRA Budge---*Jim said that the budget review is almost complete. We
> will have a proposal for discussion at the next Project Team meeting
> on May 14.
>
> *Summary Statements---*Scarlett Gibb reported that 98% of summary
> statements for the May Council were generated in IMPAC II. The only
> problem seems to be user-defined characters in WordPerfect files.
>
> *ECB Steering Committee*---Thor announced a meeting on Wednesday,
> April 24 at 10:00 am in Rockledge II, ninth floor conference room.
>
> *IC-Specific Data Committee---*Thor announced a meeting today at 1:30
> pm in 6700 B Rockledge, Room 1205.
>
> *IRDB Enhancements*---Carol Martin informed the group about the new
> and enhanced Materialized Views (MVs) soon to be released. Program
> Official contact information for the primary and secondary ICs will be
> added to PV_ICD_ASSIGNMENT_MV on April 24. The new
> PV_STEM_CELL_LINES_MV will add human embryonic stem cell (HESC) data
> to the IRDB effective April 29. PV_GRANT_PI_MV will be modified to add
> name and contact information for GMOs, GMSs and SRAs.

## Attendees

Lyn Albrecht

Patricia Austin

Eileen Bradley

Carlos Caban

Jim Cain

Dave Carter

Krishna Collie

Zoe-Ann Copeland

Michael Cox

Steve Fitzgerald

Thor Fjellstedt

Carla Flora

Donna Frahm

Scarlett Gibb

Andy Greenleaf

Marcia Hahn

Dan Hall

Della Hann

Steve Hausman

Earl Hodgkins

Stephen Hughes

Carol Martin

Madeline Monheit

Bob Moore

Pete Morton

Kalpesh Patel

Johnnie Pearson

Bob Reifsnider

Christine Rumney

Wally Schaffer

Chuck Selden

Sandy Seppala

Belinda Seto

Sara Silver

Tracy Soto

Bobbi Spitzberg

George Stone

Jim Tucker

Virginia Van Brunt

Amir Venegas

Nancy Vess

Pat Wallace

Catherine Walker

Sherry Zucker