The role of the Operations Manager is to coordinate the efforts of the Operations Interns and assist them in facilitating a successfull working environment for the student developers. The Ops Manager seeks to increase the effectiveness of the Ops team through the issuing of Operations Challenges and through weekly oriented goals documented within the teams progress reporting. The Ops Manager collaborates with the Operations Advisors of Lunatic Labs to ensure all members of the Ops team are adaquately tasked and acts as a liason between the interns and the advisors themselves.
Organizational Hierarchy - It is the Ops Manager's duty to lead the Ops Interns and resolve any inquiries they may have, escalating those inquiries to the Ops Advisors when neccesary.
Slack - Slack is the primary method of communication between the Lunatic Labs Operations team. Internal communications are processed through the #internal-ops channel while student developers request assistance through the #operations channel.
Student Requests (#operations) - Student requests through the #operations channel should be handled promptly by the next available intern on the operations team. It is the Ops Managers responsibility to monitor the efficency with which interns are processing these requests and to provide internal guidnace on the resolution of these requests when it falls outside of the scope of the interns. Below are some guidelines on processing student requests:
- Upon receiving a student request the operations team will provide verification to the student that their request has been received by either replying with a short message or simply using the Slack reaction 👀 to notify the student their issue is being looked into. Verification of receiving the request should happen by the operations team no later than 24hrs after the request is issued.
- Although some rudimentary requests may prescribe a quick straightforward answer for more complex queries the Operations Interns should respond in a way that promotes the learning of the student and leads them to the solution rather than handing it to them outright. Guidance for the request should be issued no later than 72hrs after receiving the request. An update should be provided to the student for any request that hasn't been completed within the 72hr window.
- Operations Interns take possession of a particular request by replying or reacting to it but may solicit the assistance of other interns with the request through the #internal-ops channel.
- Upon completion of a student request the Operations Intern should verify with the student that their issue has been addressed and upon receiving verification mark the thread with the reaction ✅ to signify its completion.
- An audit of outstanding requests should be the first priority of the Operations Intern upon clocking in.
Internal-ops - The #internal-ops channel should be utilized for inter-team communications and be a place for general collaboration between the interns on student requests and on operational and administrative challenges issued by the Operations Manager. This is also the place where Operations Challenges may be issued and pinned to the channel for the duration it takes to complete them.
Email - Email may be utilized when the feature set of Slack is deemed inadequate but an effort should be made to consolidate company correspondence within the Lunatic Labs #operations and #internal-ops channels and via Slack direct message where appropriate. However, where Slack is the primary form of communication between the Ops Manager and the Ops Interns, email will be the primary way in which the Ops Manager communicates with the Ops Advisors.
Operations GitHub - The Ops Manager is responsible for the maintenance of the Operations GitHub. This includes creating a library of documented Lunatic Labs procedures within the Operations repository and the general adminstration of the student project repositories located within the Lunatic Labs organization.
Jibble - _ [Details for a persistant Ops Jibble Owned by LL]._
Company Meetings - Company meetings are the main vessel in which the Advisors will disseminate information to the student developers. Company meetings are billable hours for the Operations Interns as well as the Ops Manager. These meetings should be tracked through the Operations Jibble. Although the Operations staff should be present and attentive during company meetings the meetings are primarily an exercise for the student developers. Additional conduct guidelines for company meetings are listed below:
- Remote staff should participate in the Company Meeting Zoom with their mics muted and video on. This shows a visible, tangible presence of the team to the student developers without unintended audio interruptions.
- Operations Interns should stand by for questions directed to the team by in-class participants or those submitted during the meetings via Slack.
- Although the Operations Interns may have valuable input regarding the student projects presented during company meetings, providing that input contradicts the "learn by doing" experience that Lunatic Labs wishes to provide. Instead, Operations Interns should make note of the potential pitfalls of the project and have the related guidance on stand-by should the students reach that area of development and find they are unable to overcome the obstacle without assistance.
Operations Challenges - Operational Challenges will be issued to the Operations Interns by the Operations Manager as an exercise to increase their knowledge on relevant software development tool stacks and skill sets. The result of these challenges, regardless of the main deliverables, will be an operations curated tutorial on the relevant tool or resource. Operations Interns should be diligent in documenting their discoveries as this will be the way in which they assist student developers when the students reach similar milestones of development.
Weekly Ops Meetings - Upon assuming the role of the Operations Manager the Ops Manager should work with the Ops Interns to set a time for a weekly video conference where they discuss ongoing projects of the Ops team and progress made on Operations Challenges. The Ops Manager will address any road blocks detailed in previous weekly report and discuss goals for the week ahead. These weekly meetings are a chance to not only check progress, but to build rapport with members of the team.
Reporting - Weekly progress will be tracked via an archive of progress report documentation on the Lunatic Labs GitHub. Each week the Operations Manager will provide a templatized report dated for the current week under the "Progress Reports" folder of the Operations GitHub repository. Operations Interns are responsible for filing out their respective SCRUM-style questions within the report before 11:59 p.m. on Thursday each week. Answers to the questions should emphasize the individual's contribution to the team's progress as opposed to the team's progress in general. The report will then be summarized and submitted by the Operations Manager to the Operations Advisors on Friday (before noon) for review
Cloud Resource Allocation - TODO - [This section will detail the process for approving and allocating Lunatic Labs cloud resources to student developers]