Protehome software

Management

Published

January 20, 2020

Clients

A large 50+ person laboratory from the University of Sydney’s Faculty of Medicine & Health.

Data exists in spreadsheets on users laptops, with columns organised in various ad-hoc, manual ways
Data can come from several distinct experiment types, with different “columns” being appropriate for each
Data has been processed with different versions of the same software, and this needs to be recorded/captured
Data has been processed to different versions of reference annotations, so old data needs to be automatically updated to reflect the changes that have happened in the annotation

My role was project management & user requirements elucidation.
The tool ended up consisting of:
- An interface to upload data and validate its integrity
- Internal functionality to update the database records when UniProt (a publically available annotation database) was updated
- A search interface

As project manager, I ensured client needs were met within a reasonable time frame and the software was able to do what they wanted.
As domain matter expert, I served as a “translator” between the clients (biologists) and the two software engineers, as the ways/langauge of describing functionality and user needs was very different between the two. For example, a “UI” demonstration was confusing for the client, as much core functionality was still not operational, so it was unclear what they were being asked to provide feedback for.