Setting Priorities for a Busy Second Half

Portfolio Update

Setting Priorities for a Busy Second Half

By Ben Craker, Portfolio Manager and Jim Wilson, Chief Technology Officer

This year’s mid-year meeting in North America was a little different and a great success. Based on member feedback we tweaked the agenda to focus more on time for discussions and networking and fewer working group or topic specific sessions. This was great from the perspective of the Portfolio Management Center. The roundtable discussions along with a few other sessions surfaced a variety of new topics and issues the members are facing and interested in addressing. We will be working on refining the topics and identifying project leaders, so be on the lookout for next steps and further communications soon.

Before I get started on my end, I want to share a post-conference End-User ID update from Jim Wilson, our CTO, who’s been facilitating the project over the past 18 months:

It has been quite a journey for AgGateway's End-User Working Group. The seemingly simple solutions to the decades-long problem of what data distinguishes one end user from all others turned out to be neither simple nor a solution. So, we went back to first principles, specifying problem scope across several categories, defining terms, and asking hard questions. We developed a clear understanding and written expression of the challenges. We developed written terms and definitions and then committed to using them in speech and writing. We produced a white paper and then a major revision to it. In a nutshell, we have clarified our thinking and sharpened our language.

We are well underway developing a set of mitigation options and the tradeoffs among them. Note that I said “mitigation” rather than “solution”. Group consensus is that a fast-moving ag retail environment will not support the time required to complete an exhaustive process to determine whether data about an end user is associated with an existing end user in AGIIS. So, mitigation it is.

This week the group will process comments on the latest draft and then transition to the final stage, which is to finalize the set of mitigation options and their tradeoffs, and offer concrete recommendations to AgGateway’s Directory Oversight Committee (DOC). The end is in sight!

That’s encouraging news for a project that has occupied a pretty significant investment of time and energy for member volunteers and staff. And now, here’s where we stand currently on other key AgGateway projects:

Don’t forget to sign up for WG35 Data Stewardship Metadata; this is a hot topic with a lot of attention around the world including related new legislation in some states. This working group will be taking the first steps toward developing better solutions for ensuring data is used as intended when shared. The first meeting is being scheduled so it is still a great time to sign up if you have not done so already.

Both the Field Boundary Obstacles (WG34) working group and Field Operations Controlled Vocabulary (WG31) teams are near completion. They have a few more meetings scheduled but should be wrapping up and posting recommendations to the ADAPT community soon.

Finally, the Modus v2 Schema working group failed to get enough labs engaged, so we are going to shut it down and adjust the scope a little following discussion during the mid-year meeting. So be on the lookout for a call to participate in a new and improved working group to be announced later this month.

As usual, if you have any questions on the activities of any of these working groups, an idea for a new group, or want to get engaged feel free to contact me (ben.craker@aggateway.org), or sign up for a working group here.