ESMP Governance Overview

CoG has two main governance bodies. At the strategic level, there is a set of principal investigators who set and evolve project direction. Additional, critical input is provided by other team members during weekly telecons, which cover a range of topics. A group of users, developers, and managers is involved in regular meetings in which potential tasks are reviewed and prioritized. This group creates project release schedules.

The ESMF organization is comprised of a Working Project and Executive Management. The Working Project is defined as the team of customers and developers who collaborate day-to-day to build the ESMF product. The Working Project consists of three parts: a line-managed Core Team responsible for building the ESMF software, including unit and system testing, maintenance, support, and oversight of a web-based collaboration environment; a group of active users called the Joint Specification Team (JST) that interacts with the Core Team and broader community, providing requirements, feedback, and a standards track; a Change Review Board (CRB) that integrates and prioritizes the requirements from multiple users and sponsors. The Working Project is funded, guided, and evaluated by its Executive Management. The Executive Management of ESMF is comprised of: an Executive Board charged with scientific and technical leadership, a Review Committee that examines conformance of the project to best practices, and an Interagency Working Group (IAWG) that encourages discussion among sponsors and other stakeholders. A complete description of the ESMF organization, including terms of reference for all bodies, is provided in the ESMF Project Plan (see: http://www.earthsystemmodeling.org/management/paper_1004_projectplan.pdf).