Our way of working
At Tilburg Science Hub, we use an adaptation of the Scrum methodology. Scrum is a simple framework for effective team collaboration. We use it to manage the development of our core platform as well as any type of project (including academic research projects).
Our way of working may be different from what you've been used to. Therefore, it's important you take the time to get familiar with it. Don't worry if you find it hard at the beginning, the team will eventually help you transition to this new way of getting your work done.
Our key tools are:
- GitHub Repositories (for each project, like our core platform, but also for each research project)
- GitHub Issues, that clearly define manageable tasks and assign team members to it.
- Kanban-style project boards to prioritize Issues
Finally, if Scrum is new to you, please familiarize yourself with it here. This is also a fantastic, Scrum-inspired book: "Grip - Het Geheim van Slim Werken" (NL).
Communication about project-related work occurs on our GitHub repositories (most likely https://github.com/tilburgsciencehub/website; unless you are working in any project-specific repository, see https://github.com/tilburgsciencehub.com/repositories). The conversation section beneath an issue/task on the Project board is also an appropriate space to communicate about this issue with team members.
Personal chats and meetings take place on teams.
Meeting somebody outside of Tilburg University? You can use Teams or Zoom to set up calls. When logging on to Zoom, please use the "SSO" login option, and use tilburguniversity as the domain ("tilburguniversity.zoom.us").
WOW meetings are held via Teams on Mondays from 4:30 pm to 5:00 pm. In these meetings, we briefly check-in, mention a WOW we experienced, and share what we’re working on.
You can join the meeting by clicking on this link, or by adding it to your teams calendar via the Tilburg Science Hub channel. This way you can look at your agenda every Monday, click on the meeting and participate in this way. This link is always the same throughout the academic year. However, this may change after the summer holidays. Keep an eye on your email and the teams channel for the new link.
If you cannot attend the WOW meeting, you can post a message on the teams channel or in the chat of the WOW meeting to inform the rest of the team of your absence. This way, everyone sees the message and is informed when they open their teams and join the meeting.
Research Assistants employed via the Tilburg Science Hub's pool system should regularly schedule office hours to meet with a Core team member to "check in" and discuss their work.
Current Format: 15 mins. Sign up to chat every 2-3 weeks
Sign Up Link: Calendly
The Core Team, which coordinates the entire project (i.e., everything that Tilburg Science Hub is), has numerous additional meetings.
- During separately scheduled strategic discussions, the product owners (in collaboration with the team members) decide upon the needs for further development or improvement of Tilburg Science Hub. These needs form the product backlog and are broken down into smaller items/tasks that can be completed in a reasonable amount of time (for example, a few hours). Items can be allocated to a specific team member.
- During our team’s sprint planning meeting, which kicks off each new sprint, the product owners inspect the work from the backlog that’s most valuable to be done next and move these items to the sprint backlog. We also review tasks that have been completed in the previous sprint.
- During the sprint (in our case, two weeks), team members complete the tasks selected by the product owners from the product backlog.
- In addition to regular sprint meetings, the core team meets for a brief “WOW meeting” (max. 15 minutes) to discuss the past week’s successes: basically, anything we have achieved and are very proud of sharing with the team. This helps us stay connected and positive!
