FAD planning changes (impact over budget; approval process)

[Matthew Miller]

The "How to organize a FAD" page at
<https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/How_to_organize_a_FAD> previously
stated that budget is "the absolute first priority". Now, maybe this is
my hippie upbringing speaking, but I don't think it's _really_ all about
the money. I've changed this to "this needs to be a very early
priority" — it's still important, but I think the first priority in
planning a FAD should be thinking about the impact the FAD is intended
to have.

That should be both in concrete terms of "What're we gonna get done?"
but also _"What does this do for the project overall?"_ (Or, I guess,
if you _do_ want to make it all about the money, "Why should we spend
on this?")


I'm going to pull out this ASCII chart again:

 /============+============+=============++=============+=============\
 |            |            |             ||             |             |
 | Resources  | Activities |  Outputs    || Outcomes    |   Impact    |
 |            |            |             ||             |             |
 +------------+------------+-------------++-------------+-------------+
 |What we     |What we do  |The direct   ||The specific | Mission and |
 |have: time, |with our    |products of  ||change in the| vision; our |
 |money, code,|resources   |our          ||world due to | long term   |
 |hardware... |            |activities   ||those outputs| effect      |
 +============+============+=============++=============+=============+
 | Things we can affect directly         || Out of our direct control |
 +============+============+=============++=============+=============+
 |           <----- planning flows right to left ---------<           |
 +============+============+=============++=============+=============+
 |           >------ effort flows left to right ---------->           |
 \+===================================================================/


Starting with money is planning from the left side — it's a resource.
This doesn't result in the best use of those resources. Obviously,
there are pragmatic *limits* to those resources so that number needs to
go into the on-the-ground planning, but if we start from the change we
want to effect, we can better judge if a particular goal fits within
what we have, or is worth finding more by reallocating or fundraising.
And, it avoids overspending based on "well, we've got this budget, so
let's make sure to use it up".

Additionally, unless there is objection, and I hope there isn't, I'm
adding wording that FADs which are connected to the Council's accepted
12-18 month community goals will be given priority.


I also have another pair of changes to propose. Currently, the
procedure is to work with OSAS on the budget and with the FPL for final
approval. I have suggested tweaks to both of these.

In line with the Council plan overall, I'd like to change the "work
with the OSAS team to figure out the budget" part to "work with the
Fedora Council". As defined in the Council charter, facilitating
decision making on focusing the OSAS-provided Fedora community budget
is one of the Fedora Community Action and Impact Coordinator's roles
(hi Remy!), and this seems like a natural place to do that. (We could
also make the wording "work with the Community Action and Impact
Coordinator" rather than council at large.) Of course, the Council (and
Remy, who *is* on the OSAS team inside of Red Hat) would work with OSAS
in the determination — the change isn't in where the money comes from
ultimately, but in the contact point for organizers (and in
transparency and visibility).

Second, I'd like to change the FPL approval to Fedora Council approval.
This is largely a matter of transparency — usually, these requests are
mailed to me directly, and I think it'd be better to talk about them
here instead. (This obviously makes a lot of sense in conjunction with
talking about the budget with the council too.) Not that I have a
problem being the approver per se, but it'd be nice to have this
process be more open to community input.

Thoughts, comments, objections, refinements?

-- 
Matthew Miller
<mattdm at fedoraproject.org>
Fedora Project Leader