Proposal: The New Fedora Marketing

Jack Aboutboul jaa at redhat.com
Wed Feb 18 23:18:02 UTC 2009


Hello All,

Over the past few weeks, some of us have been diligently working on a 
number of projects on the marketing front.  As many of you know, and as 
many of you have participated, I have over the last two weeks been 
talking to many of us, privately, trying to poll the crowd and see what 
those amongst us thought were the best areas for improvement and/or 
optimization of the marketing team.  Based on that feedback, I've 
developed this proposal which lays out those key areas, identifies what 
can be improved upon and how we can go about doing it.  The solution 
pretty much encompasses everything, so I'll just present the 3 key 
issues and then what I think is the best course forward.  Please note, I 
am looking to solicit feedback on this, this isnt like a dictatorial 
edict or anything, just one man's thoughts.

As it stands right now, Fedora Marketing is very strong.  I make that 
statement based on the character of all those involved and the quality 
of the discussions which we have.  There is a perceived weakness 
however, which many attribute to lack of communication.  The truth is, I 
think that any weakness which exists, whether its lack of organization 
or the relatively low amount of traffic on the mailing list I attribute 
to an inefficient workflow.  So I ask myself, and everyone else, maybe 
there is alot of room for improvement and a maybe its just a few small 
steps we can take that can have us running at max efficiency?

There are 3 main areas in which we can improve:

1. Better organization and workflow - we know what we need to do, just 
that often times we don't know when.  Also, records and methods of 
tracking are sufficient, sub-optimally efficient.
2. Better and clearer delegation of tasks - we know what we need to do, 
just that often times, we don't know who is responsible for it.  A large 
problem with this also is that some people refrain from picking up 
certain tasks because they assume it belongs to someone are afraid to 
step on toes.
3. Better coordination with other sub projects and project groups - part 
of marketings goal relies on 3 other groups, ambassadors, art and docs.  
There are ample opportunities for improving communication, coordination 
and collaboration with these three teams, to ensure that we get done 
what we need to get done and that they get done what they need to get 
done which requires input from us.

The proposed solution:

A better, calendar based, workflow!  The reality is that our workflow is 
cyclical in nature, it is based on a release schedule and we have mostly 
the same, or a majority of similar tasks/milestones that need to be done 
for each release.  If we shift our current workflow and task tracking to 
a similar scheme, it may be easier for us to stay on top of things and 
operate more efficiently.  It also allows us to have clear "due dates" 
for each item, and have it clearly marked with an owner.  Right off the 
bat I see us knocking out two of our major issues.  Plus, clarity when 
it comes to responsibility and accountability will facilitate better 
communications amongst ourselves.  Also, I propose that part of this 
schedule system includes 2-3 meetings with members of the other relevant 
projects, and this way, anything that hinges on us for them, or them on 
us, will be clearly defined, we achieve mutual understanding, and can 
delegate those tasks to people in Marketing.

So for example, we start out at T-Minus 6 weeks from the alpha, have 
everything necessary from that until the alpha on a grid marked with a 
task, date, owner.  Same for Beta, same for GA.  A Good example can be 
found at John Poelstra's Schedule Pages found here 
http://poelstra.fedorapeople.org/schedules/f-11/ .

Also, this should all be kept under 
https://fedoraproject.org/wiki/Marketing/Schedule with trailing 
/releasever and an anchor from that main page to whatever the current 
release is.

A little bit of refactoring might do us alot of good, but we all need 
each other's feedback and each other's help, as a team and as a community!

What do you guys think?

Jack




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