Chapter 4 Shared Workstreams Across Management Trio

  • Value Streams: Research, Development and Operations
  • Workstreams: R&D, DataOps/DevOps and PeopleOps Managers coordinate value streams, manage workstreams, and enable workflows.
  • Workflow: Coordinated people, schedule, platforms, meetings, channels, quality assurance and deliverables.

Shared across Research/Dev/Ops Manager Trio

  • all_teampsd: Shared activities across all value streams coordinated by Research/Dev/Ops Manager Trio.
  • training_workflow: Shared activities across research, development, and operations value streams coordinated by the Research/Dev/Ops Manager Trio.
  • hq_workflow: Shared activities across research, development and operations value streams coordinated by the Research/Dev/Ops Manager Trio.

Co-coordinated by R&D and DataOps/DevOps Managers

  • mixed_methods_workflow: Integration of QUAL + QUAN mixed methods research, co-coordinated by the Research & Development Manager and the DataOps/DevOps Manager.
  • quant_workflow: Supports the research and operations value streams. Co-coordinated by the Research & Development Manager and the DataOps DevOps Manager.

Research and Development Manager is primary:

  • co-i_workflow: Supports the research value stream. Coordinated by the Research & Development Manager.
  • post_doc_mentorship: Supports the research and operations value streams. Coordinated by the Research & Development Manager.
  • post_bac_mentorship: Supports the research and operations value streams. Coordinated by the Research & Development Manager.

DataOps/DevOps Manager is primary:

  • support_workflow: This coordinated workflow of both quant_workflow and sim_ui_workflow is in support of development and operations value streams, and is coordinated by the DataOps/DevOps Manager.
  • sim_ui_workflow: This workflow provides design, maintenance and operational support of the MTL Simulation User Interface (Sim UI) in support of development and operations and is coordinated by the DatOps/DevOps Manager.
  • msd365_workflow: Supports the operations and development value streams. Coordinated by the DataOps/DevOps Manager.

People Operations Manager is primary:

  • facilitate_workflow: VACO OMHSP Facilitators of the NIH & VA cluster randomized trials. Supports the research and operations value streams. Coordinated by the People Operations Manager.
  • mtl_hawaii_samsha: Internal Team PSD meetings to discuss Data to Wisdom Grant with Hawaii Dept of Health. Coordinated by the People Operations Manager.
  • ees_workflow: Supports the operations and development value streams - MTL Live. MTL Video & MTL Facilitate with VA Employee Educations Services (EES). Coordinated by the People Operations Manager.
  • vapor_workflow: The Veterans Affairs Partnership for Operations Research (VAPOR) is a group of Peer Support Specialists that ensure Veterans’ voices and experiences are represented in MTL and at the stakeholder table.

4.1 Manage Team PSD and VHA Worflows via Teams And Outlook

  1. Request Access to teampsd_vha (PI or Mgr approves).
  2. On Teams click on workflow channel […] select “Manage Channel.”
  3. Navigate to mtl.help OR mtl.info shared Outlook calendars.
  4. Send updates via Outlook standing meeting series.

4.2 Improve the Modeling to Learn Repo via a Pull Request and Quality Assurance

  • Value Stream: Operations
  • Workstream: People Ops
  • Workflow: facilitate_workflow
  • Video:

Teams Channel

4.3 Improve the Team PSD Manual

This section explains how to use GitHub to update a section in the Team PSD manual. It will also detail how to request a review of your changes and incorporate into the document-of-record.

This section explains how to:

  • Create a “feature branch.”
  • Make and save edits to a Markdown file.
  • Request a merge of the feature branch with the gh-pages branch (document-of-record).
  • How to update the bookdown.yml file to compile the Team PSD Manual in the proper chapter order.

4.3.1 1. Create a feature branch from the GH-Pages Branch.

  • Start by creating a feature branch with the beginning of the branch named “feature-gh-pages”. The “feature-gh-pages” must be written precisely - GitHub is triggering several automated functions using that naming.

  • Branch naming convention:
    • New chapter - If new chapter title is “My New Chapter” then name the branch “feature-gh-pages_my_new_chapter.”
    • Edit an existing chapter - If existing chapter title is “Using Markdown” then name the branch “feature-gh-pages_using_markdown_edit.”
    • If the chapter is being worked on by multiple contributors, or if the chapter is long, break down into multiple files that can be reconciled when compiling the publication. See the Compiling a Publication section below for more details.

4.3.2 2. Create a new markdown file in the branch.

  • If contributing to an existing markdown file, skip to step 3 below.
  • Create and name a new markdown file

4.3.3 3. Find and edit a markdown file.

  • Find the markdown file and open for editing.

  • Chapter Heading Structure. The software that compiles the markdown files into a published manual, takes information from the heading markers (#, ##, ###) to determine if something is a chapter or a subsection. For example:

    • “# Standard Operation” compiles as “Chapter 3 - Standard Operations”
    • “## Team PSD” compiles as “Chapter 3.1 - Team PSD”
    • “###”Open-source, Transparent, Reproducible" compiles as “Chapter 3.3.1 - Open-source, Transparent, Reproducible”

  • Add content. There are many features in markdown that support various formats and text emphasis. See markdown guide cheatsheet for more information.

  • Add a link. There are two components to a link, the description and the uniform resource locator (URL). It goes like this, description in in brackets [uniform resource locator] followed immediately by the URL in parenthesis (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/URL). So all together uniform resource locator.
    • The description in brackets is a Section 508 Accessibility requirement, so visually impaired people can use a browser reader to interpret what is contained in the link.
    • The link can be placed anywhere in the document. The term in the brackets will be the only visible element in the rendered document.
  • Add a graphic. Adding graphics are very similar to links because they both rely on a call to a URL.
    • Create and upload a graphic the the gh-pages_images folder. Team PSD uses the .png file format for still graphics, and .gif for screen-casts. When naming the image, describe what is contained in all lower case, separated by an underscore (ex., upload_image.png).
    • To render a graphic in bookdown, an html tag (img src = ) is needed before the link. See the graphic below to learn how to format a graphic link.

4.3.4 4. Update the “_bookdown.yml” file to reflect proper chapter order.

  • .yml. The “_bookdown.yml” prints out the manual in the order of the the markdown files listed in line 6. As explained earlier, the headers of the markdown files listed tells the _bookdown.yml file whether the markdown is a chapter or a subsection. The order of the files in the _bookdown.yml file will be automatically numbered sequentially by the yaml program.

  • Add a markdown file - with chapter heading. List the markdown filename in the desired chapter order of which, the file should appear in the manual.
    • Make sure to include quotations around the file name and a comma.
    • Note the last chapter does not need a comma.

  • Add a markdown file - with subsection heading.
    • Sometimes a team must break the work out into sections and it is easier if everyone has their own file. the _bookdown.yml file supports compiling subsections from files separate from the main chapter heading file.
    • This is a great way to check the formatting and output of your markdown file in the actual Manual before you hand off the review for QA Test.

4.3.5 5. Make a pull request to the gh-pages branch.

  • Check and resolve for errors returned by the markdown linter, spell checker and link checker.
  • Assign QA Test reviewers.
  • Once the reviewer has approved, then go to step 6 below.

4.3.6 6. Publish your Chapter to master GH-pages branch.

  • Merge the Feature branch into gh-pages branch.
  • Check the actions and ensure the bookdown rendering did not encounter any problems.
  • Resolve any bookdown problems.
  • See the new work! Go to Team PSD Manual

4.4 Manage Outlook Shared Calendars & Meeting Series

  1. Request access to shared calendars by emailing in team PSD manual.
  2. Determine whether the meeting is Research or Operations.
  3. Navigate to mtl.help (operations) OR mtl.info (research) shared calendars & inboxes in Outlook.
  4. Outlook meeting series colors (green = coplan, purple = prep, blue = MTL Blue, red = MTL Red).

4.5 Improve the MTL 3.0 Manual

  • Value Stream: Research, Development and Operations
  • Workstream: R&D, DataOps/DevOps, and PeopleOps managers coordinate value streams, manage workstreams & enable workflows.
  • Workflow: Coordinate across all workflows.
  • Video

Teams Channel Link

4.6 Scope Workflow Dependencies Using User Stores and GitHub/ZenHub

4.7 Coordinate Train Workflow

4.8 On-board New Team Member to VA

  1. Complete all VA/PAVIR Paperwork.
  2. Complete Fingerprinting & TB Test.
  3. Complete Talent Management System (TMS) Privacy & Information Security & HIPAA trainings.
  4. Complete VA or PAVIR orientation.
  5. Schedule PIV Badge appointment.
  6. Request Government Furnished Equipment (GFE) laptop.
  7. Set up VA email.
  8. Track laptop, desktop & phone details.
  9. Get access to Team PSD folder.

4.9 Hire a New Team Member through PAVIR