12:36 p.m.
Hi all!
I'm wondering if we should optimize out decision finding and realizing
process a bit. The weekly IRC meetings have some problems:
- we often get only four or five people from the steering committee
(sometimes only three)
- sometimes there are periods where the meetings get stuck for one or
two minutes because people often do other stuff in parallel
- only rare attendance from non-steering committee members
- the usual time-zone and real-life comes in between problems with IRC
At the same time on the mailing lists
- stuff gets discussed, but then often things seems to get stuck because
everyone waits for the steering committee to make a decision; those are
done in the meeting only (e.g. only once a week), and things then get
stuck if no decision can be found easily or gets bumped between list
and meetings
- things get agreed on on the list and then suddenly out of the blue
some steering committee member raises concerns in the meeting (but did
not raise them on the list beforehand). That complicates things a lot,
as explaining stuff ("I don't like foo bar and baz, but foobar, and want
...") in IRC often is boring for the others as they have to wait for the
other to hack all that into the keyboard.
All those (and likely some other stuff) slow EPEL down IMHO and are
sometimes annoying. I'm wondering if we could improve the situation
somehow with some changes, but I'm unsure myself how.
Some ideas, from the top of my head:
- only meet on IRC every second week
- only meet on IRC all four week or when there is a need to
- somehow accept stuff on the mailing lists if possible. Kind of "send a
proposal, if some people give a "+1" on the list and no one objects from
the SIG within some days consider it accepted". Sure, it's often not
that easy and we needed to work out more details for such a scheme, but
it could be or something into that direction. That way the SIG or EPEL
contributors get more influence and we might need the Steering Committee
only if a decision can't be found
- weekly status mail from the owners of major tasks
Other thoughts/idas?
CU
knurd
12:41 p.m.
On 8/14/07, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info> wrote:
[massive snip]
Nearly all projects face the same problems (some do sometimes, others to often)
- only meet on IRC every second week
*with* a defined agenda in place
- only meet on IRC all four week or when there is a need to
experience (somewhat limited in my case) shows this to be an overkill sometimes
- somehow accept stuff on the mailing lists if possible. Kind of
"send a
proposal, if some people give a "+1" on the list and no one objects from
the SIG within some days consider it accepted". Sure, it's often not
that easy and we needed to work out more details for such a scheme, but
it could be or something into that direction. That way the SIG or EPEL
contributors get more influence and we might need the Steering Committee
only if a decision can't be found
If there's a set of points to be discussed with some initial seeding
of pros and cons, the mailing list might function as a thermometer as
to how an IRC meet would go if it were called for the same issue
- weekly status mail from the owners of major tasks
This would actually serve well if summed up monthly as to "what was achieved"
:Sankarshan
--
You see things; and you say 'Why?';
But I dream things that never were;
and I say 'Why not?' - George Bernard Shaw
4:21 a.m.
On 14.08.2007 19:41, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay wrote:
On 8/14/07, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info> wrote:
[massive snip]
Nearly all projects face the same problems (some do sometimes, others to often)
Sure -- but I was in FESCo for one year and there it worked much better.
Seems people were more interested in Extras then.
> - only meet on IRC every second week
*with* a defined agenda in place
Well, the topic list is in the wiki. What precisely what you like to be
more defined?
What I'd like to see more: Status updates from the *task-owners* before
the meetings, so we can talk about solving the problems only and can do
so even if the owners is not around (if needed).
> - only meet on IRC all four week or when there is a need to
experience (somewhat limited in my case) shows this to be an overkill sometimes
Likely.
> - somehow accept stuff on the mailing lists if possible. Kind of
"send a
> proposal, if some people give a "+1" on the list and no one objects from
> the SIG within some days consider it accepted". Sure, it's often not
> that easy and we needed to work out more details for such a scheme, but
> it could be or something into that direction. That way the SIG or EPEL
> contributors get more influence and we might need the Steering Committee
> only if a decision can't be found
If there's a set of points to be discussed with some initial seeding
of pros and cons, the mailing list might function as a thermometer as
to how an IRC meet would go if it were called for the same issue
> - weekly status mail from the owners of major tasks
This would actually serve well if summed up monthly as to "what was achieved"
Well both things would be nice, but have a serious problem: someone
would need to write such stuff up -- that's a boring task which often
nobody really wants to do.
CU
knurd
8:14 a.m.
Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
On 14.08.2007 19:41, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay wrote:
> On 8/14/07, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info> wrote:
>
> [massive snip]
> Nearly all projects face the same problems (some do sometimes, others to often)
>
Sure -- but I was in FESCo for one year and there it worked much better.
Seems people were more interested in Extras then.
I think its just that since the work we've done has already been through
FESCo, that there's just less for us to do.
-Mike
8:19 a.m.
On 15.08.2007 15:14, Mike McGrath wrote:
Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
> On 14.08.2007 19:41, Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay wrote:
>
>> On 8/14/07, Thorsten Leemhuis <fedora(a)leemhuis.info> wrote:
>> [massive snip]
>> Nearly all projects face the same problems (some do sometimes, others to often)
> Sure -- but I was in FESCo for one year and there it worked much better.
> Seems people were more interested in Extras then.
I think its just that since the work we've done has already been through
FESCo, that there's just less for us to do.
Well, yes, there is curently not as much to do in EPEL as for Extras in
the past.
But let me rephrase: The workflow in FESCo was much better -- more and
more active people in the meetings and decisions didn't take that long
to get done/realized.
CU
knurd
12:47 p.m.
On Tue, 2007-08-14 at 19:36 +0200, Thorsten Leemhuis wrote:
- somehow accept stuff on the mailing lists if possible. Kind of
"send a
proposal, if some people give a "+1" on the list and no one objects from
the SIG within some days consider it accepted". Sure, it's often not
that easy and we needed to work out more details for such a scheme, but
it could be or something into that direction. That way the SIG or EPEL
contributors get more influence and we might need the Steering Committee
only if a decision can't be found
+1
We really can do everything on list. The meetings are a reminder and
decision force -- having a time to "make decisions" helps busy people
remember to make them.
We could have a rule that anything brought up green/brand-new on the
list within the previous 48 hours of a meeting cannot be decided upon in
that meeting. All other items that are undecided from the list from
before the 48 hour window are fair game for deciding in a meeting.
The idea is to have as much discussion and decision making
asynchroniously, but not let the mailing list time drift go on too long.
- weekly status mail from the owners of major tasks
+1
Deadline is five minutes before the meeting.
- Karsten
--
Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project
Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
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6:25 p.m.
On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 08:49 -0500, Michael Stahnke wrote:
> > - weekly status mail from the owners of major tasks
>
> +1
>
> Deadline is five minutes before the meeting.
Was this part a joke? I couldn't tell from email :)
I have no problems getting things done on the list. (At least I can
read that when I get to it).
Nope, not a joke, but maybe I fail to see any irony in the idea?
It was a follow-on to the idea that one of the greatest benefits a
weekly meeting gives you is a chance for everyone to catch up on writing
and reading status reports.
But if we're going to rely upon content from those reports to inform
meetings, they need to be done before the meeting; I just think it's OK
to say that the last minute before a meeting is OK.
- Karsten
--
Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project
Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
quaid.fedorapeople.org | gpg key: AD0E0C41
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12:41 a.m.
On 8/18/07, Karsten Wade <kwade(a)redhat.com> wrote:
On Fri, 2007-08-17 at 08:49 -0500, Michael Stahnke wrote:
> > > - weekly status mail from the owners of major tasks
> >
> > +1
> >
> > Deadline is five minutes before the meeting.
> Was this part a joke? I couldn't tell from email :)
>
> I have no problems getting things done on the list. (At least I can
> read that when I get to it).
Nope, not a joke, but maybe I fail to see any irony in the idea?
It was a follow-on to the idea that one of the greatest benefits a
weekly meeting gives you is a chance for everyone to catch up on writing
and reading status reports.
But if we're going to rely upon content from those reports to inform
meetings, they need to be done before the meeting; I just think it's OK
to say that the last minute before a meeting is OK.
If a status report is given a minute before the meeting, then we have
to take a break during the meeting to read and discuss. Either that,
or we read it after the meeting and any discussion happens the next
meeting or on list. It just seems ineffective to have a deadline a
minute before we are in a forum to take action...unless everything
only applies to the next meeting.
stahnma
- Karsten
--
Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project
Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
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2:27 p.m.
On Sun, 2007-08-19 at 00:41 -0500, Michael Stahnke wrote:
If a status report is given a minute before the meeting, then we
have
to take a break during the meeting to read and discuss. Either that,
or we read it after the meeting and any discussion happens the next
meeting or on list. It just seems ineffective to have a deadline a
minute before we are in a forum to take action...unless everything
only applies to the next meeting.
We may need a distinction between "statuses that require discussion
before the meeting" and "statuses that do not require discussion." This
is a gray area, no distinct line, so we need to leave room for the
discretion of the individuals involved. I recommend we have a guideline
such as, "Report early if you have an item worth discussing so there is
sufficient time on list; otherwise get status reports in before the
meeting starts.[1]" Anyone who fails to give a topic sufficient on-list
time learns the consequences.
This guideline would fall out from the guideline/directive that
discussions happen on list, not saved for IRC, with the 48-hour minimum
cooking time for new topics to stew on list. FWIW, that is probably a
good practice across Fedora. :)
- Karsten
[1] I'm just being a realist based on my experience. If you say "one
hour before the meeting", it is as likely to arrive before that as after
that. If we set the deadline "24 hours before the meeting", it is as
likely to arrive before that as after that, and once it hits after that
time, it's as likely to arrive in the last five minutes as at any other
five minute interval since the deadline passed.
A similar situation occurs with other people reading the status. It's
as likely someone reads the report when it arrives as during any five
minute period from arrival to just before the meeting.
This is why I like the five-minute-before-the-meeting rule. It
acknowledges that a measurable portion of the people do not deliver or
read reports until that last five minutes. It really only takes that
long to read them, anyway.
--
Karsten Wade ^ Fedora Documentation Project
Sr. Developer Relations Mgr. | fedoraproject.org/wiki/DocsProject
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9 comments
5 participants
participants (5)
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Karsten Wade -
Michael Stahnke -
Mike McGrath -
Sankarshan Mukhopadhyay -
Thorsten Leemhuis