Board/FESCo mission/vision FAD

Max Spevack mspevack at fedoraproject.org
Tue Aug 31 03:44:35 UTC 2010


On Mon, 30 Aug 2010, Jon Stanley wrote:

> Just a little bit ago on the Board's private list, the idea of a few 
> FAD's, funded by CommArch, was brought up. There's no reason to keep 
> this secret, so I wanted to bring the discussion over here :).

http://mairin.wordpress.com/2010/08/27/fedora-board-meeting-27-august-2010/

After reading the above, I sent the following to board-private:

"I am 100% supportive of FESCO and/or the Board taking the initiative to 
figure out what 3 or 4 useful FADs might look like, some clear 
deliverables for those FADs in support of their technical mission, and 
making sure those get funded with CommArch money.

I'd encourage folks to start by saying 'what problems can we solve with 
the FAD model' and then coming up with budget requests that are 
responsible, rather than trying to start with a fixed budget number and 
working the other direction.

In general, we commit a few thousand dollars to a FAD though, 
recognizing that there are travel and lodging costs often associated 
with it."

I followed that up with the following:

"We've learned over time that there are three things that make FADs 
successful.  Missing even one component usually dooms that FAD to 
sub-optimalness (though not necessarily failure).

(1) A clear objective that forces people to operate under a deadline and 
in a timeframe.

(2) The right people involved, so that work can be done at that FAD, and 
not have to block on someone who's not around.

(3) A dedication to documentation and making sure folks who aren't 
there, but who care about the topic, can be involved remotely and read 
up on the results."

===

I'm not pushing for any specific agenda (at this point :)).  Rather, I 
just want everyone to be aware that we have budget for FADs, and we're 
in need of some worthwhile endeavors on which to spend it.

If that's a carrot needed to get a few of the folks who are discussing 
different paths forward organized and mobilized before the end of 2010, 
so be it.

--Max


More information about the advisory-board mailing list