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Maintainers -ImageAkshat Mittal, ImageDr. Fabrizio Finozzi

Onboarding

This is a controlled document

In line with Open Energy Transition regulatory obligations, changes to Controlled documents must be approved and merged by a code maintainer. All contributions are welcome and encouraged.

Onboarding is incredibly important for us at OET. We highly recommend taking at least a couple of days for onboarding followed by team specific onboarding and training. Please feel free to participate in your team’s work in your first week, but don’t feel like you have to contribute heavily. The following guide will give you some helpful information to get you started.

For a smooth as possible onboarding we have created a new Onboarding Project for you on the OET GitHub. For your first days, on the so-called Kanban Board in this project you can find a list of ToDo's that are assigned to you and which you can complete one by one.

We are thrilled to have you on board, welcome to the OET team!

Get started on Day 1​

On your first day, you will be welcomed by your manager in a short onboarding meeting where they will explain to you some first steps.

You should also have been added to OET's Discord server, which is the centre of our daily communication. For more information on the company Discord see Discord tips below.

You can then start working on your Kanban Board in your custom Onboarding Project on the OET GitHub. Once you have completed a task, you can mark it as done. If some tasks are not relevant for your role, you can also mark them as done. Ask your manager to find the right person to support you with tasks that must be done for you (e.g. set up an OET email for you).

First week​

During your first week you will continue to work through the issues of your Onboarding Project until they are all completed and the project can be closed. In your first week, you will be officially introduced to the team in person in the E-Group Weekly, which takes place online every Tuesday at 2 p.m. CET. This is also your chance to meet everyone in person and say a few words.

It is very important to us that you always feel supported with any questions that you may have during the onboarding process and afterwards. In order to have someone to talk to and share questions and concerns with, you will be assigned a buddy who you will meet during your first week. The general idea is that your buddy will also be involved in the work that you will be doing afterwards, so that you can discuss specific technical issues.

Within the first few days you will also be contacted by your manager who will slowly introduce you to the projects you will be working on. You will be given some initial tasks and reading material to get you started and familiarise you with the projects.

Discord tips​

OET's Discord server is the centre of our daily communications. Here you will find various public channels, text channels as well as project-related channels where the OET team regularly exchanges on different topics.

Here are some tips on getting the most out of Discord:

  • On your first day when you join Discord, introduce yourself briefly in the #welcome channel.
  • Another important channel for your weekly ToDo's will be the #discussionchannel. Apart from general discussion, all OET team members have opened their own prio-talk threads in this channel. In their prio-talk thread each team member outlines their progress from the previous week, their current ToDos and other updates at the beginning of each week. With everyone working remotely, this helps the team stay connected with regards to what people are up to each week and encourages helpful exchange on topics.
  • Threads can help keep a channel organized, try to use a thread for all discussion on a particular topic. To start a new thread in a channel you can click on the thread icon in the top right corner of your Discord. img from static
  • Another useful aspect of the Discord server is the video chat meeting rooms. Here you can find rooms for co-working, official meetings or even a nice digital coffee chat with a colleague. img from static
  • Ensure that you are getting notifications from Discord when someone @-mentions you, or tags @everyone. You can also opt-in to get notified for all messages in a particular channel by clicking the bell icon on the top right, as shown in the picture below. For instance, you might want to do this for your project channels so that you don't miss any messages. img from static
  • Remember, Discord does not notify the author of a message if you react to the message with an emoji. So use reactions when you convey something non-time-critical, but reply to a message or @-mention the author if you want to notify them of your response.
  • Last but not least, use the relevant channel in the OET Discord over directly messaging (DMing) somebody as much as possible! Keeping all communications to channels helps keep everyone in the loop, makes it more likely that you are helped if you have a question, and fosters a sense of team-spirit despite us being all over the world. Of course, you can still use DMs for private or sensitive topics.

Checklist​

By the end of your first week, please ensure that you:

  • Have an @openenergytransition.org email address and have joined the OET Discord server
  • Have a GitHub account and are on the OET GitHub people page (ask Siddharth Krishna if you need support with this)
  • Are on the OET website's team page: instructions can be found here (ask Akshat Mittal if you need support with this)
  • Have gone through this Onboarding page, and added to it any information that you found was missing in your first week (see Editing the handbook)
  • Have the weekly Tuesday all-OET meeting in your calendar (ask Victor Martinez if you don't)
  • Have a buddy and have had a call with them; also feel free to hang out in the co-working or coffee-room Discord channels to get to know the rest of the OET team!

Managers​

Managers of new OET members, please ensure that a new Onboarding Project is created on the open-energy-transition GitHub for the new team member at least 4 business days prior to their start date. You can copy the Example Draft project and expand it with relevant tasks. The example project's Kanban Board also contains issues that are to be completed by the responsible manager, IT team, and HR team, in addition to the new member during the onboarding process. Managers, HR and IT Ops all have tasks that need to be completed prior to the start date to ensure a smooth and successful onboarding process.

For questions or help with any of these tasks feel free to reach out to the responsible HR lead.

Non-tech staff​

Non-tech staff such as those in HR, design, marketing, etc. are also encouraged to set-up a GitHub-account and be added to the OET GitHub organization.

To get a good overview over open modeling, check out the following articles (all can be found online):

  • Stefan Pfenninger et al. (2014): Energy systems modeling for twenty-first century energy challenges
  • Stefan Pfenninger et al.(2018): Opening the black box of energy modelling: Strategies and lessons learned
  • Markus Groissböck (2018): Are open source energy system optimization tools mature enough for serious use?