Sigmetrics workflow

SIGMETRICS Workflow

Use this as the project-management skill for a SIGMETRICS submission. SIGMETRICS runs three rolling deadlines a year (summer / fall / winter) into the POMACS journal, so the calendar is a choice among deadlines, not a single annual scramble. Replace every date with the current official timetable and work backwards from the abstract-registration cutoff, which precedes each paper deadline by about a week.

SIGMETRICS has rotating per-edition General and Program Chairs (appointed by the SIGMETRICS executive committee) rather than a standing conference editor-in-chief; POMACS is open access with no APC, and at least one author presents each accepted paper. Re-check the current organizing-committee page rather than carrying a name forward.

The rolling-deadline advantage

Unlike a once-a-year venue, SIGMETRICS lets you aim at the next deadline that fits your evidence. Two consequences:

• Missing a deadline costs ~4 months, not a year — the next rolling deadline is a quarter away. Do not rush a proof or a measurement campaign to hit summer if fall gives you a clean result.
• Publication timing matters: summer/fall acceptances appear in POMACS before the conference; a winter acceptance publishes in the following issue. Choose the deadline whose POMACS timing and presentation slot fit your goals.

Milestones

• Venue fit: confirm SIGMETRICS over IMC/SIGCOMM/NSDI/a theory venue, and the correct track (sigmetrics-topic-selection).
• Evidence lock: freeze the model and assumptions, complete the proofs, and finish the simulation/measurement that validates them.
• Abstract registration: submit real title, abstract, authors, conflicts, and track by the earlier registration deadline.
• Submission: upload the anonymized acmsmall PDF and the artifact reference by the paper deadline (23:59 AoE).
• Reviews: triage each comment by criterion (rigor, proof correctness, assumption validity, evidence, novelty, reproducibility).
• One-Shot Revision (if issued): close the entire required-changes list and resubmit to one of the two subsequent deadlines — a single shot, re-read by the original reviewers.
• Accept + shepherding: incorporate the shepherd's required changes into the final POMACS version.
• Publication + presentation: POMACS camera-ready, artifact/badges if the cycle offers them, register, and present.

Backward plan from a paper deadline

Weeks out (heuristic)	Performance-evaluation milestone
10+	Model and assumptions fixed; main theorems stated; measurement/trace secured
8	Proofs complete and internally checked; simulator built with logged seeds
6	Analysis-vs-simulation agreement established; baselines chosen and tuned
4	Full draft in acmsmall; artifact (model, simulator, trace scripts) assembled and anonymized
3	Internal mock review by a performance-evaluation reader (check a proof case and an assumption)
2	Assumption-validity section hardened; related-work delta sharpened; 20-page budget met
1	Anonymity sweep on PDF and artifact; abstract registered
0	Paper + artifact reference on the correct per-deadline HotCRP site

These offsets are planning heuristics only — anchor every one to the current call and the per-deadline HotCRP deadlines page, never to a previous cycle.

The 12-month bar and cycle-hopping

• A reject cannot be resubmitted to any SIGMETRICS deadline for 12 months from the initial submission — a structural reject costs a full year at SIGMETRICS, so route a fundamentally reframed paper elsewhere meanwhile rather than idling.
• A One-Shot Revision is not a reject: it resubmits to a subsequent deadline within the rolling process. Budget the revision window to close the whole list in one shot.

Failure modes by stage

• A proof still has an open case at week 4 forces a rushed appendix nobody has checked — the classic rigor reject in the making.
• An unvalidated assumption (claiming M/G/1 without fitting the workload) invites the "does the model match reality?" objection that a One-Shot Revision then has to repair.
• Leaving the simulator/trace scripts to the final week is how a cluster path or a provenance string leaks identity under double-anonymity.
• Rushing a One-Shot Revision into the nearer deadline and leaving a listed item half-done turns a winnable single-shot into a reject.

Coordination notes

• Assign one owner for the proofs/appendix and another for the simulator/measurement and the anonymity sweep; shared ownership is how both slip.
• Archive the exact submitted PDF, artifact, and (later) the required-changes list and response — the single-shot revision must close that list precisely.

Output format

[Current stage] idea / model+proof / evidence / registration / submitted / one-shot revision / accepted
[Chosen deadline] summer / fall / winter <cycle>, and its abstract + paper dates (source)
[Critical path] <three tasks that determine readiness>
[Risk register] <proof completeness / assumption validity / anonymity / reproducibility / page budget>
[Owner map] <task -> person or role>