Opening up the EB meetings

6 April 2009

Conference phone or EB meeting


In the effort to involve all collaborators in important discussions and decisions, the ATLAS Management has decided to make Executive Board (EB) meetings open to all. Day one of the two-day sessions – which run on a Thursday and Friday approximately ten times per year – has always been open, in fact, but until now it had not been widely publicised.

“People need to share information,” says ATLAS Technical Coordinator Marzio Nessi. “Especially now while we’re waiting for the beam. Everybody wants to know what’s happening. We want to give people information first hand, not second or third.”

In addition to actively encouraging collaborators to attend and contribute, the structure of the meetings has been modified too. Before, the open Thursday meeting mainly covered technical Point 1 and detector issues and the Friday was reserved for a full-day closed EB meeting. But the balance has now shifted; the closed meeting will now last just a morning and is intended for chasing up and taking decisions on the main ‘action items’ arising form the previous day, as well as any issues of a more delicate nature.

All presentations will now take place in the open meeting on Thursday, and slides for these will be posted online. The meeting will cover everything from the pit to analysis tools, and collaborators may attend in person (basement auditorium, Building 40) or tune in from afar via EVO. Anyone who wants to speak or present something at the meetings can put in a request via their project leader or activity coordinator in advance of the agenda being prepared.

“It’s important that the collaboration can access this information and can participate in the discussion of the important issues,” says ATLAS Spokesperson Fabiola Gianotti. “And not only problems, of course, but also good things – achievements of the experiment. It’s very important that everybody feels part of the adventure.”

The third open EB meeting will be held on Thursday May 14th, beginning at 9:30 a.m. in 40/S2-C01 and over EVO.

 

 

 

Ceri Perkins

ATLAS e-News