Management

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 several bodies. These are:

• An Executive Board charged with scientific and technical leadership.
• An Advisory Board that reports to and guides the Executive Board.
• An Interagency Working Group (IAWG) that coordinates among sponsors.
• An ad hoc Review Committee that provides assistance with project evaluation to the IAWG.

Both the Working Project and Executive Management interact with the Earth system modeling and related communities, including the computer science community, the software engineering community, and vendors.

This organization enables the ESMF project to coordinate across milestones, missions, and agencies. Coordination across the ESMF must be addressed by the entire project structure, so that sponsors can coordinate with other sponsors, hands-on staff can communicate with their peers, and prioritization of multi-agency requirements can be mediated at the appropriate level.

A complete description of the ESMF organization, including terms of reference for all bodies, is provided in the ESMF Project Plan.