brainBox

a suggestion box for brainy ideas

Overview

• You start with a seedling 🌱 of an idea (a coffee seedling, because good research requires good fuel!).
• This seedling passes into a "budding" process that involves you, the author of this idea, formalizing it with a GH issue; at the end of this "budding" process, your seedling is more robust and its coffee beans can be harvested.
• Your coffee beans now enter a "roasting" process where they are submitted to external elements, much like roasting coffee beans to bring out their best flavor. During this process, your labmates and collaborators can comment on the open GitHub issue to share their thoughts, raise concerns, etc.
• The last stage in the process is "brewing" a quaffable cup of coffee. Here, you refine your original idea in light of the group discussion.
• Finally, you and the PI enjoy the coffee ☕ together (figuratively-speaking) as you formally pitch the idea to the PI as a prospective undertaking for the lab.

How-To

Budding

1. Use one of the issue templates available in this repo (there is one for papers and one for code/tools/instruments) to open a new issue. Take your time in formalizing your thoughts. While you work on the issue, it will live in the "Budding" pipeline on the brainBox ZenHub workflow.
2. Create a new branch within the brainBox repo. Name it: [project shortname]-[your name]. For example: choco-factory-charlie. Add a new directory (subfolder) under the brainy-ideas directory. The project shortname that you use for the GitHub issue, the shortname that you use for the new branch, and the shortname that you use for the sub-directory should be identical.
3. On your branch, within your project subfolder in the brainy-ideas directory, create a readme file. Use this file to build out and refine your idea. This can start as a duplication of the content of your issue.

Roasting

4. When you are ready, open your idea up for group discussion by tagging the lab (@labwide) on the issue and moving it into the "Roasting" pipeline on ZenHub.
5. Watch and respond to the questions that come in. Feel free to remind certain individuals to comment with their thoughts (by tagging them individually) if you feel they would have particularly valuable expertise to hone your idea.
6. As you refine the idea, update the readme in your subdirectory of brainy-ideas on your own, specific branch. Think of the issue as the conversation and the readme as the work-in-progress. When you make changes (commits) to your readme, be sure to include brief, detailed descriptions of the changes made so that it is easy for others to follow the progression/evolution of your idea.

Brewing

7. As your idea takes full shape, move the issue into the "Brewing" pipeline on ZenHub.
8. Create a pull request on GitHub by adjusting the details on the default pull request form. Assign the PR to the PI and tag any other lab members who have played a significant role in the development of the idea.
9. It is not necessary to schedule a meeting with the PI to discuss the PR; however, if you think it will help, use Calendly to pre-set a meeting no sooner than two days after you intend to submit the pull request on GitHub (in order to allow adequate time for your PR to be reviewed).
10. Get excited to discuss how to make your idea a reality!