As with all of the organizational documents, this is not intended to be followed rigorously. These are simply guidelines around best practices that we hope people will update with their own experience and findings.
Some guidelines about creating and taking on the role of project lead.
The project lead is designed to be a single main point of contact for a project. They are responsible for coordinating the technical direction of a project and its team, and ensuring that it meets its goals. The tasks involved can range in scope, and can be as self-contained as asking for a specific formatting of data or as wide-ranging as hunting down entire datasets to be analyzed. Think of this role as equivalent to "Manager of Data Science" or "Lead/Senior Data Scientist".
Never done this before? Great! No previous experience require and the D4D is here to help out.
Some projects naturally require project leads from the outset - such as those with external partners - but not every project is created equal.
Other times, the need for a lead might emerge over time. Let's say you've been goofing around with your D4D buddies. Someone thought it would be interesting to try to collect and build a pipeline for <insert shiny data>, and you hack something together. The project gains some real momentum and people start piling in to help. Maybe it's time for a leader.
Responsibilities that should be
- Setting up a project README
- Coordinating the technical work of the team
- Managing list of project priorities
- Communicating the process
- Identifying tasks for people at various stages of analysis
- Act as point of contact
- Communicate with project Facilitator and Ambassador
Depending on the exact nature of the project, you might also want to include
- Formalizing a pull request review process
The project lead should have administrative level permissions on the GitHub repo.
For projects where an external partner is involved or with specific deliverables, leaders may be appointed by D4D.
To be filled by members