Input to the 2004-01-08 Planning Session by PeterYim

• Ontolog Forum Planning

• • Articulate Goals (1 to 3 years)

Task: Draft at least two goals (projects, to do items) & 2 measurable objectives (deliverables) for each goal Time: 7 minutes to work independently & 3 minutes to review

• • • Goals
      • Be the foremost international open forum on Business Domain ontology -- attracting, retaining, [and invigorating] the best minds in this field as members of the community
      • be running major projects in collaboration with other organizations in the business ontology domain

• • • Deliverables
      • have at least 5 to 10 active participants in all of the key facets of a community of practice
      • number of projects going in 1 year - 3 ; 2 years - 10 ; 3 years - 30

(ran out of time) ... moving on

• UBL Ontology Project Planning
  • What timeframe?
    • be able to release a first ubl-ontology (alpha-1) by May 2004
    • be at beta stage by end Dec. 2004
  • 2 goals
    • get funded so we actually have resources to get this work done
    • team up with others -- standards group (UBL, UN/CEFACT, NIST, ...) and users organizations, so that our deliverables can be validated and applied
  • deliverables
    • SBIR proposal by January 15
    • get awarded at least 1 SBIR grant by Jun 2004
    • start 3 pilot implementations after alpha is available
    • have a demo for each of our 3 use cases

• Constraints - top 4
  • not properly organized
  • don't have an action plan
  • not yet funded
  • not properly trained to implement the methodology adopted

• Strategy
  • get organized
    • form a proper team, with committed leadership
  • put together an action plan
    • do KIF training (core player should all know how, even if not proficient)
    • then assemble pairs of ontologist+domain experts and then formalize in natural language first
    • get funded (and hire students to code after the process above)
    • post a project plan / gantt chart ... (the whole works) ... and keep that refreshed

• • also, we should have started with core components, not documents (like purchase order or invoice)

• 3 issues under [Gap Analysis] - description, resolution strategy & 2 measurable objectives each: (session: 2004.02.05)

• • (1) Lack of solid project plan -- as a project, maybe because this is a distributed ad hoc working group, we still lack the very basic organization and project life-cycle planning and management processes that ordinary projects of this sort would have started out with.
    • Strategies --
      • what we are doing now (OntologPlanning 2004) is good, let's keep that up, and get more people involved
      • appoint project managers and start to manage the UblOntology project like a "real" project, with regular and structured meetings (virtual or f2f), deliverables and deadlines.
      • alloting one weekly session per month to do planning (as we are doing now) is great!
      • before doing that, I think we need to get some sponsorship or funding, so that core people can make this part of their "job" and a priority to get things done on time.

• • (2) Not properly trained to implement the methodology which has been adopted -- participating members should all be brought up to speed on the basics of formalizing a concept (say, something in UBL) and representing that in SUO-KIF.
    • Strategies --
      • do structured tutorials and have them documented for future reference and re-use

• • (3) Not adequately funded -- if we were to develop any sort of serious standards work, we need the resources to get things done properly.
    • Strategies --
      • form a fund-raising sub- task force
      • get commercial and government sponsors