One-on-one and small-group meetings to understand researcher goals and practices, recommend appropriate ACI resources, identify potential knowledge gaps, and develop an overall plan for utilizing ACI resources. Record-keeping of engagements and following up.

1. Introduction
2. Overview of an Engagement Meeting
   2.1 Preparing for the Meeting
   2.2 During the Meeting
   2.3 Concluding the Meeting
3. Finding Engagement Opportunities
4. Record Keeping of User Interactions
   4.1 Establishing Processes and Procedures
   4.2 Implementation
   4.3 Metrics For Engagement Tracking

Introduction

One of the main duties of a Facilitator is meeting with researchers in order to better understand their ACI needs and to help them select the appropriate resources and approaches. To that end, engagements, important for accelerating the adoption of ACI resources in support of research endeavors, play a crucial role in an ACI plan’s development and in contributing to the plan’s success. Activities defined as engagement may include:

As a rule, tasks done on behalf of a researcher without the researcher’s involvement are not considered engagements.

Engagements can be both formal and informal. For example, an informal engagement might arise from a meeting to help resolve a straightforward issue (an example documented in Assisting Researchers). This can turn into an engagement when the Facilitator realizes that a) she/he needs to know more about the individual or their research; b) the researcher was directed towards ACI resources without proper planning; or c) the plan, formal or not, is insufficient to the point that you must intervene. A formal engagement is typically a deliberately scheduled initial or ongoing meeting between the Facilitator and the researcher to capture ACI needs and develop an action plan for meeting those needs.

Just as engagements can be formal and informal, so can ACI Plans. In cases where the research needs are straightforward and the researcher has a sufficient background in the use of ACI resources, the plan may be as simple as providing basic information on accessing the resources and on usage policies. In other cases, the researcher may have limited or even no experience with the use of ACI resources and may be looking for guidance on how to begin or determining what can and cannot be done. In either case, having an initial engagement with a new user of ACI resources is a good idea, as it serves as an introduction of the Facilitator and the role of facilitation to the researcher.

The remaining sections will address leading practices for successful engagements. “Overview of an Engagement Meeting” describes how to prepare for a meeting, what to consider during the meeting, and how to conclude a meeting. “Record Keeping of User Interactions” focuses on the procedures, policies, and tools needed to effectively manage engagements, and includes guidelines on documenting user interactions and measuring the engagement process.

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Overview of an Engagement Meeting

A Facilitator is charged with broadening the usage of ACI resources as well as assisting researchers in achieving better and quicker research outcomes through the use of ACI. To this end, engagements are a vehicle for making formal contact with the researcher as well as gathering knowledge about their research and computing needs. As an engagement requires direct interaction with a researcher, a face-to-face meeting is recommended at least for the initial meeting.

The impetus of initial engagements vary between institutions, and even between departments within an institution, but commonly they arise from:

The product of this meeting should be an course of action — an ACI plan — that outlines how the ACI team can be of assistance, in addition to providing a roadmap for future engagements and projects involving the researcher.

For follow-on engagements the Facilitator may continue to meet in person or conduct subsequent meetings via web conferencing or by telephone. She/he will most likely be simultaneously corresponding via email, and depending on what is discussed, it may be important to track these conversations as part of the official record (see “Record Keeping of User Interactions”).

Preparing for the Meeting

The initial meeting is an opportunity for the Facilitator to make a good impression on behalf of the resource(s) providers and to build trust in the researcher-Facilitator relationship. To ensure a productive engagement, a Facilitator should take several steps for preparation in advance. This will ensure that both the Facilitator and the researcher get the most out of the meeting and that the researcher’s time is respected, not to mention the fact that scheduling meetings with faculty members can be challenging.

Research

It is crucial that a Facilitator takes the time to learn about the need for ACI resources in the researcher’s field of study prior to the actual meeting. This may be accomplished by a simple review of any existing ACI plans and previous issues/support tickets if available, along with a review of the lab website, background on the current technologies in their field, and what local resources are already provided for such research. Doing so will establish Facilitator credibility in speaking about relevant ACI advances for their field and will allow the Facilitator to more quickly understand their research and ACI needs.

Questions

An initial engagement is the perfect time to gather knowledge about the science and research results that the researcher is currently pursuing for which they require ACI resources. For inquiring about research and resource needs, it is extremely helpful to have a list of prepared questions. A list of basic initial engagement questions, as well as some questions specifically geared toward compute center resources, is shown below.

In addition to these basic tried-and-true questions, we recommend developing some of your own questions to add to the template. In principle, the questions will be aimed at prompting the researcher to discuss their current and long-term research, their research computing goals, what is blocking their current work, and what they would do if they had the necessary resources. If the questions are sufficiently prepared, providing them to the researcher prior to engagement meetings also helps prime her/him for thinking critically about their cyberinfrastructure needs and will result in a more productive interaction.

Resources

Another helpful item to have prepared in advance is a list of ACI resources available for her/his use. It is possible your ACI group has already compiled a list of the ACI tools and resources at your institution that can be leveraged. If not, this is something a Facilitator should do, for which the chapter on ACI Knowledge can provide ideas. Researchers may not know or understand all the options that are immediately and locally available, and mentioning these can prompt additional discussion about their research and directions that they didn’t think about prior to the meeting.

In addition to local resources, your list should include external ACI resources that exist outside of the group to which the Facilitator belongs. These might include regional and/or national resources that scale beyond that which most individual institutions can achieve (e.g., XSEDE, Open Science Grid, iPlant, etc.) Since many Facilitators may not work at a large resource-providing institution, it is to the benefit of researchers to be made aware of all existing ACI resources available.

During the Meeting

One cannot underestimate the importance of the first face-to-face contact — the tone and success of this meeting sets the trajectory for remaining interactions you will have with this individual or the research group. Remember that the primary purpose of the engagement meeting is to gather information; to that end, there are eight key practices to keep in mind.

1. Be interested and positive. You want the researcher to leave the meeting feeling positive about the ACI Plan so they will be able to enact the plan for the greatest research impact.

2. Take notes. Good documentation allows this meeting to be referenced in the future and will set the team up for success.

3. Actively listen. Everyone has a tendency to promote a predetermined message when discussing something they are passionate about and, in doing so, we sometimes forget to listen.

4. Identify roadblocks. If/when roadblocks are related to some of the policies and procedures of the institution, make a note without being negative or apologetic.

5. Describe the resources. Explain the relative scale of relevant ACI resources and what that scale enables. Often researchers are so focused on past solutions and their current lab capabilities that they miss the positive impacts of scaling up.

6. Make a plan. Whether a formal plan is required depends on the complexity of the researcher’s needs. If needed, the ACI plan could be created during the meeting or in some cases taken back to the ACI team for additional development.

7. Engage others. Remember that the ACI team may not be able to address the researcher’s needs. Bringing in or a referral to another resource or collaborator might be the appropriate solution.

8. Explain technical jargon. It is impossible to avoid technical jargon when discussing ACI. Try to be sensitive when using terms that are not familiar to almost anyone else, and be proactive about explaining these terms as you use them. Jargon changes over time and can mean different things within different disciplines.

9. Research first, ACI second. It is easy to get carried away when describing all your incredible ACI resources. Keep this urge in check while you focus on determining the research objectives and goals.

Whatever the method, the Facilitator and ACI team should always point researchers to the most appropriate resource. While the resources a Facilitator represents may be effective for many cases, they may not be the best solution for all research needs. Be sure to utilize your Facilitators network, such as ACI-REF, CaRC, and XSEDE Campus Champions, when you have questions that cannot be addressed within your team.

Concluding the Meeting

By the end of the meeting, the Facilitator should have good comprehension of the researcher’s work and goals, and devise some form of an ACI plan, whether formal or informal. Prior to concluding this or any meeting, it is important to review the actionable items which, in this case, are within the ACI plan that the meeting has produced. A review will focus everyone on the tasks ahead and set expectations on the items to be done by each party. The practice of reviewing is key, as individuals may otherwise leave a meeting with widely varying ideas and expectations about future outcomes, so conclude with clear tasks and timelines. For example:

After the engagement, the Facilitator can continue to assist the researcher, bringing in other members of the ACI team as necessary (see the Assisting Researchers in the Use of ACI Resources chapter). In some of the engagements, it will become apparent that the researcher requires a course of action that is more complex. In these instances, it is ideal to create an ACI plan (see Implementing an ACI Plan for more details) to document and organize all the major steps as one of the engagement outcomes. This plan can be used to drive future assistance and engagement meetings and aid in keeping the team organized for specific tasks that relate to particular researchers. It provides a framework to track tasks that block other tasks while highlighting dependencies. In essence, an ACI plan is a blueprint or project management document that fits your group’s workflows and procedures in a way that allows you to organize and scale the team’s facilitation activities.

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Finding Engagement Opportunities

Engagements are rarely initiated by the researchers, as typically they are looking for assistance. Therefore, Facilitators are the ones to identify potential engagements and initiate meetings. There are several places to look at for making engagement conversions:

To provide the best ROI, Facilitators should proactively seek out engagements and weekly tasks should include scheduled time to check for new opportunities.

Record Keeping of User Interactions

Documentation is one of the cornerstones of solid organization: Being organized enables easier scaling to larger numbers of clients/researchers, in addition to being able to share responsibilities among team members. To this end, establishing a procedure to track/document researcher interactions is important, especially as demand for Facilitation and ACI resources increases. Many ACI groups have adopted a system for user management and ticketing systems to handle account requests, software installs, bugs etc. (see more in Assisting Researchers in the Use of ACI Resources). Documenting, tracking, and organizing your interactions with users/researchers can be extensions of ticketing activities in most ways, and most of the existing ACI-REF institutions have integrated their email ticket systems into their engagement documentation processes. However, there are additional features of engagements and other user interactions for which an email ticketing system may not be sufficient.

In this section we will cover how to develop documentation practices for engagement tracking that will integrate with common infrastructure and documentation/tracking procedures to aid in organizing facilitation engagements.

Establishing Processes and Procedures

As mentioned, having a solid plan for how engagement interactions and outcomes are will be documented and tracked is crucial. When developing processes and procedures for documenting and tracking researcher engagements there are a number of considerations. Some key items to keep in mind when developing these processes and procedures are:

Remember, one of the overall goals of creating this tracking system is to convey a professional and organized appearance by capturing the information necessary for research success. This overhead needs to be balanced with the other duties of facilitating — keep in mind the return on investment for each part of the process.

Implementation

The current ACI-REF institutions differ on implementation of engagement and user tracking, but there are significant commonalities in features. Leveraging existing tools, especially for assistance requests across IT teams for resources like networking and storage, is recommended to reduce complexity and infrastructure (see the chapter on Assistance for additional ideas and information). Also, recognize that some of these tools may be managed outside of your group, as is often common when research computing ACI teams are tightly coupled with central IT.

Some infrastructure features that should be considered when implementing a tracking system:

Some of the tools being used to track engagements by the current ACI-REF institutions are:

Regardless of the tools and procedures chosen to develop the tracking system and tracking, it is important that the facilitation team members utilize them consistently. If not, there will be confusion, dropped tasks, and potentially lost credibility with researchers. Additionally, if you are tracking any metrics or information, a lack in consistency will result in unreliable results and will hinder your efforts. With multiple Facilitators on your team, ensure that everyone is trained and understands the tracking procedures that are in place. For an example of tracking and documenting an engagment see Appendix 3.1

Metrics For Engagement Tracking

An additional goal for having a tracking system is to generate reporting information for your organization, granting agencies, and any other stakeholders. The tracking system can be a partial source for data used to report on facilitation activities, as well as on the impact of these activities. In regards to engagements, examples of metrics to track include:

Be aware of how you can integrate this information into your assessment data and metrics in order to save time later (see the Assessment & Metrics chapter for recommended metrics for tracking and other details).

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