It’s official, I’m moving over to lead the System Engineering Branch. The last three years, as I’ve done less development work and more management, I’ve also been drifting in the direction of focusing on interfaces and architectures. I’ve also been working with Melissa on metrics, and I have a very good working relationship with her. [...]
Archive for the ‘STScI’ category
Moving to System Engineering
April 19, 2007Telecommuting is bad for people who don’t do it?
April 10, 2007An article in the April Communications of the ACM takes an unusually rigorous look at the effect of telecommuting on productivity. The study is done with call center workers, so they have a direct measure of productivity, intensity and efficiency. It’s a long study, so they can deal with temporary effects of new telecommuters versus [...]
It's been a while.
February 28, 2007I stopped posting when it looked like we were about to reorg, because I got asked not to talk about the reorg until we had made some decisions. Then there was a big decision made external to the Division, and a different reorg. Then I was out of the habit. So, now I’m going to [...]
I passed.
December 20, 2006Back in September and October I took a PMP prep course. It turned out I knew what I was doing. So while Melissa was having her baby, I passed the PMP exam. tc>
Where's Tom? (Tue/Thu)
September 13, 2006Starting next week I’ll be taking a seven week online PMP prep class on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. (It was cheaper than the five day course in NYC.) While I’ll be online, I’ll want to minimize interruptions, and I may do some of the class sessions from home, where it’s harder to walk in on [...]
HST MSR News
September 13, 2006Yesterday was the HST MSR, and while there was little news, there is a little controversy brewing. COS and WFC3 are making progress toward being flight ready, though in the case of WFC3 they have some very odd things they need to deal with. The oddest is that they seem to have some kind of [...]
Librarian replacement requirements exercise
September 7, 2006Sarah Stevens-Rayburn is retiring, and the Institute is trying to figure out what to do about it. Claus Leitherer is chairing a committee to define the future direction of the library, so that we can recruit the appropriate person to take us in that direction. Claus writes: Most of the library users are scientists, but [...]
It could be worse….
September 4, 2006http://community.livejournal.com/_dilbert_strip/117418.html
What should we measure?
September 3, 2006I realized recently that I hadn’t posted in a while. I have a couple PA meetings to complete, and then we’ll start the goal-setting process for next year. Much of this is still very up in the air, because HR is still thinking about guidelines for us. As I’ve told most people, I think we [...]
Why nobody is likely to get a five on their performance appraisal
July 5, 2006I’ve seen a few of you send back comments on your performance appraisals, and I want to try and set expectations correctly. The one goal everybody shares is the “citizenship” goal: To foster a respectful, diverse and inclusive work environment, each employee of STScI is expected to demonstrate consideration and value for others through such [...]
