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A Brief Report from Pegasus

Dr Will VentersDr Tony CornfordDr Yingqin ZhengDr Mark LancasterMiss Avgousta Kyriakidou

EPSRC: Grant No: EP/D049954/1

www.pegasus.lse.ac.uk

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Interviews: nearly 60 with GridPP members, technical experts and users at CERN;- Thanks to Pete Clarke who somewhat pointed the direction.

Participant Observation:- GridPP meetings

• PMB meetings• DTeam meetings• GridPP collaboration meetings• London Site reviews

- WLCG workshop, EGEE user forum, All Hands Meetings

GridPP survey 2007

Secondary data:- GridPP websites- Documents- GridPP publications

Data Collection

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Publications Zheng, Y., W. Venters and T. Cornford (2007) "Agility, Improvisation, or Enacted Emergence?" Proceedings of the 28th

International Conference on Information Systems (ICIS 2007), Montreal, Canada. Nominated one of three finalists for the ICIS 2007 best paper award.

  Zheng, Y., W. Venters, T. Cornford (2007) "Distributed Development and Scaled Agility: Improvising a Grid for Particle

Physics", London School of Economics Working Paper Series - 163, London: http://is2.lse.ac.uk/wp/pdf/wp163.pdf ISSN 1472-9601

  Kyriakidou, A. Venters, W (2007) The Multi-Disciplinary Development of Collaborative Grids: The Social Shaping of a Grid

for Healthcare. 15th European Conference on Information Systems, St Gallen, Switzerland. (Nominated Best Paper). Available Here.

  Venters,W., Cornford,T. (2006) Introducing Pegasus: An ethnographic research project studying the use of Grid

technologies by the UK particle Physics Community. Second International Conference on e-Social Science, 28-30 June 2006, Manchester, UK. Available here.

  Uribe, L.M. (2007) Socio-technical elements of e-Research and libraries. MSc Disseratation, Information Systems and

Innovation Group, London School of Economics, supervised by Dr. W. Venters.

Posters Venters, W., Cornford, M., Lancaster, M., Zheng,Y., Kyriakidou, A (2007) Studying the Usability of Grids: Ethnographic

Research of the UK Particle Physics Community. (Poster) UK e-Science Programme All Hands Meeting (AHM2007)  Venters,W., Zheng, Y (2007) Users, Usability and Grids: Introducing Pegasus, a social study of the development and use of

GridPP. (Poster) EGEE User Forum, Manchester, 9th-11th May. Available here.  Venters,W., Zheng, Y (2007) Pegasus: An Information Systems Research study of Grids for the LHC. (Poster) GridPP

Stand: Institute of Physics Conference. Available here.

Presentations E-Social Science conference Guest Lecture LSE UCL Salford IS Research Forum Oxford Internet institute

Pegasus Output

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GridPP Survey

56 responded. Results based on 44 complete responses.

Management25%

Technical57%

Experiments11%

Others7%

Four themes:

- GridPP

- Improvisation

- Distributed Management

- Usability

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GridPP in General

19%

28%

30%

5%

5%

7%

60%

47%

28%

70%

16%

2%

12%

19%

37%

16%

47%

21%

2%

5%

7%

26%

44%

5%

26%

7%

7%d

k

m

p

t

y

The IT industry would have done a better job if they were to undertake the development of the LCG

GridPP has been a successful project

The funding regime for particle physics in the UK has a significant impact on the process and outcome of the UK particle physics Grid

The development of the LCG has been strongly influenced by politics

The UK particle physics Grid will work when LHC starts.

Grids will contribute to the democratization of science.

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The Most Positive Aspects Of GridPP

7% 9%

41%

59% 61%66% 68% 70%

Other (pleasespecify)

None I canthink of

We share thesame goal

We have builta working

system

The HEPtradition ofworking indistributed

collaborations

Thedeterminationand motivationof the people

We get on verywell

Thecompetence of

the people

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Is the PMB sufficiently engaged with problems on the ground?

28%

44%

19%

9%

0% 5% 10% 15% 20% 25% 30% 35% 40% 45%

Yes, Quite Sufficient

More or Less

Could Be Better

Not Sure

• Attendance by PMB members at working meetings • Having an occasional joint dteam-PMB meeting is a good idea. • Improved information flow from experiment users to PMB; I sometimes wonder how much real user representation is at PMB level • More regular feedback from PMB on specific high-level issues (as they emerge) might be useful. Having the PMB minutes published is very useful. PMB does not need to be fully engaged with all problems on the ground.

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Do you consider the UK particle physics Grid as mainly …

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

A solution toa problem

Somethingwe have to doto do physics

Acontributionto the wider

sciencecommunity

A fundingopportunity

A computinginnovation

Other None of theabove

“I have never seen so much money wasted on providing solutions to problems that industry solved 20 years ago.”

“Innovator, leading in many technical areas”

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Improvisation & Bricolage

51%

37%

2%

19%

16%

28%

35%

53%

21%

47%

58%

44%

7%

9%

47%

26%

21%

16%

7%

26%

7%

5%

12%

2%

c

f

g

r

v

w

Careful planning is necessary to develop effective solutions

I enjoy a high level of autonomy at work

I wish I had more authority and control over people and resources

I have a pretty good idea of what's going on in GridPP at a general level

The limited control over issues like available resources, hardware, and technical solutions is a big challenge for GridPP

Practical solutions are more important than rigorous methodologies

10

How do you know what needs to be done in your job?

Frequency: 1 - Never 2 - Rarely 3 - Occasionally 4 - Regularly 5 - Very often

Comment: using meetings to update others

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If you have to suddenly leave your job and someone has to replace you, what essential skills should this person have?

0.00% 10.00% 20.00% 30.00% 40.00% 50.00% 60.00% 70.00% 80.00% 90.00% 100.00%

Technical skills such as C++and/or Java

Communication skills

Good at collaborating withothers

Self-motivation

An understanding of theparticle physics community

Willingness to step up and dothe dirty work when necessary

Being good at facilitatingmeetings

Leadership “Patience. The ability to remove your eye with a fork as it is less painful than being in some meetings.”

“Large frustration threshold.”

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Distributed Management

5%

19%

19%

2%

30%

5%

19%

58%

70%

14%

21%

56%

21%

12%

9%

23%

21%

26%

44%

7%

2%

37%

23%

12%

9%

5%

23%

2%

2%

a

n

q

u

x

z

It is hard to work in GridPP because it is so distributed?

The collaboration works because there is a high level of trust in the community

In GridPP, valuable knowledge is sometimes lost due to personnel turnover

I don't pay much attention to who does what in GridPP apart from those I directly work with

Developing duplicate solutions are a waste of resources

Competition among parellel technical solutions is necessary in order to find the best one

Value your experts. Motivate and keep them.

13

Frequency and effectiveness of communication methods

Frequency: 1 - Never 2 - Rarely 3 – Occasionally 4 - Regularly 5 - Very often

Effectiveness: 1 - Very ineffective 2 - Ineffective 3 - Average 4 – Effective 5 - Very effective

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How do you share your knowledge with other people at work?

Frequency: 1 - Never 2 - Rarely 3 - Occasionally 4 - Regularly 5 - Very often

Effectiveness: 1 - Very ineffective 2 - Ineffective 3 - Average 4 - Effective 5 - Very effective

Mobilize “clusters of

competence”

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Usability

The UK particle physics Grid is easy to use

The UK ticketing system is working well

GridPP has worked closely with the users

GridPP deployment and operations in the UK has done an excellent job in ensuring the usability of the Grid

The EGEE middleware is easy to deploy and use

The GGUS system has improved and is now working well

The security of the UK particle physics Grid is sufficient

The UK particle physics Grid is robust

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Communication methods with users

Frequency: 1 - Never 2 - Rarely 3 - Occasionally 4 - Regularly 5 - Very often

Effectiveness: 1 - Very ineffective 2 - Ineffective 3 - Average 4 - Effective 5 - Very effective

Provide up-to-date contact details of technical experts.

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Theoretical perspective : organizational improvisation

Metaphors- Jazz (Weick 1992, 1999; Barrett 1998, Hatch 1999)

• “discussions of improvisation in groups are built on images of call and response, give and take, transitions, exchange, complementing, negotiating a shared sense of the beat, offering harmonic possibilities to someone else, preserving continuity of mood, and cross-fertilization”.

- Improvisational Theatre (Crossan, 1998)• Facilitative leadership, trust, influence and persuasion, fluid communication

Definition of Improvisation: “the conception of action as it unfolds, by an organisation and/or its members drawing on available material, cognitive, affective and social resources”. (Cunha 1999)- Convergence in time of conception and execution

- Bricolage – finding solutions from available rather than optimal resources

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SituatedImprovisation

environmental turbulence task uncertainty

unplanned-for occurrences task complexity

drop your toolsvisions

(Moorman and Miner, 1998, Ciborra, 1996); (Dahlbom and Mathiassen, 1993)(Miner et al., 2001) (Hutchins, 1995, Weick and Roberts, 1993)(Weick, 1993a)(Hatch, 1999, Mintzberg and McHugh, 1985, Hutchins, 1991, Weick, 1993b)

Structured Chaos

organized anarchyPersistent structures

collateral structureexperimental culture

aesthetic of imperfectiona sense of urgency

(Cohen et al., 1972)(Lanzara, 1999)(Cunha et al., 1999)(Cunha et al., 1999)(Weick, 1999) (Crossan, 1998, Hutchins, 1991,Mirvis,1998)

Planned Agility

convergence of planning & execution plan to improvise

mixing the pre-composed & the spontaneousmagnetic fieldsartful planning

(Moorman and Miner, 1998) (Miner et al., 2001)(Weick, 1998) (Weick, 1993a)(Baskerville, 2006)

Reflective Spontaneity

retrospective sense-making ex post interpretation

transient constructs emergent order

(Weick, 1993b)(Lanzara, 1999) (Lanzara, 1999)(Miner et al 2001)

Collective Individuality(Mirvis, 1998)

facilitative leadership trust and kinship

fluid communication influence and persuasion hanging out

(Crossan, 1998) (Crossan, 1998, Weick, 1993a) (Orlikowski, 1996, Miner et al., 2001)(Hatch, 1999)(Barrett, 1998)

Anxious Confidence

(Mirvis, 1998)

moodsindividual skills & creativity

formative contextorganizational memory

(Ciborra, 2002)(Hutchins, 1991, Moorman and Miner, 1998, Orlikowski, 1996) (Ciborra and Lanzara, 1994) (Moorman and Miner, 1998)

Analytical Framework : improvisation paradoxes

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Situated Improvisation EGEE, LCG, e-science, funding, hardware, software… vision of LHC

Reflective Spontaneity -pragmatic, “getting the job done”, fire-fighting-monitoring, accounting, sense-making,

Planned Agility - Project maps- Metrics, milestones- Oversight committee

Structured Chaos Limited top down authority; organizational vision; extensive management structure/communicative channels; competing technical solutions

Collective Individuality -freedom to improvise and innovate

-shared goal, trust, facilitative leadership, “hanging out”

Anxious Confidence -pressure from LHC switch on; CCRC, “Yes it will work.”

-history of cutting-edge computing and large collaborations

Research Findings

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Agile systems development can be scaled?- Embeddedness of agility- Large group performance is possible when the ambience is right.- Science vs art

Improvisation paradoxes- Scaled Agility should embody a deliberate or natural mixture of

structure and improvisation, order and changes, intentionality and flexibility, spontaneity and reflexivity, collectivity and individuality

Practical implications: develop “organizational capability” to- Embrace uncertainties and risks- Enforce collaboration with strong motivation - Encourage innovation with supportive atmosphere (trust, autonomy,

communication)

Contributions