Discussion: Organizing work

[GeoffreyBooth]

Building off of @SMotaal and @bmeck’s interrupted discussion at the end of last meeting, I think it might be useful to discuss maybe semi-formalize our process for how smaller groups are working? I’ve found the small-group model to be very productive so far for Phase 2-3 and Phase 2-4, so I’d like to encourage it and find ways for it to work for everyone.

#196 (comment) is a group-editable comment where people were invited to say which parts of Phase 2 they wanted to be involved in; that could perhaps be better managed somewhere else, maybe a wiki page on this repo? Or even as PRs to the Phase 2 roadmap doc, perhaps with pre-approved permission for members to add or remove their names without needing quorum. Such a list defines who is on each small group for the parts of Phase 2 (or beyond).

For the Phases 2-3 and 2-4 groups, we’ve had a long-running Google Hangouts chat with all involved members and we’ve used that to set up calls and so on, ideally finding times that work for everyone. (This is where the smaller the group the better.) I don’t know if there’s a better option (Slack?) or something else that people would prefer, but I think it’s important to try to keep as much communication involving the entire small team whenever possible. This complements the small teams themselves being open to anyone interested in participating in that topic.

Anyway these are just suggestions, I guess we can treat this as a discussion thread if people want to suggest other ways for organizing the work that’s happening on the new implementation. I’m just so excited that we’re making progress that I want to help all the groups keep moving forward 😄

[GeoffreyBooth]

Yes, well, that’s why I’m suggesting structures to ensure that that doesn’t happen. We’re all members of this group and we should all be entitled to work on any part of the new implementation, and that includes participating in planning discussions. It’s important to plan in an open way, open to anyone who wants to be a part of that work effort.

[MylesBorins]

I'd like to suggest that we move any discussion about personal relationships off this thread and I'd kindly ask that people moderate comments related to specific relationship issues. If people feel that individuals are not acting within the guidelines of our organizations code of conduct they are free to make a report to @nodejs/moderation There is a hard balance between asking people to be transparent and telling people where / when / who they can work with. Our teams governance mentions nothing about everyone needing to be included in all conversations nor that people working on team related issues having to do so within the confines of the group. None of us are entitled to other people's time, but we should work towards collaborating as much as possible. If we want to make stronger membership expectations we should do so in a separate issue. Unless this issue has a very directed outcome I think we should close this.

[GeoffreyBooth]

I guess it’s up to the small groups themselves how they want to conduct their work, but I think at least having a place where it’s listed who’s working on what (or interested in what) would be helpful. We can do better than that comment I posted in that thread a few weeks ago. Would a wiki page be an option?

[SMotaal]

@MylesBorins I am happy to do my part.

Edits: I deleted comments I made which were out of context (however they were also not inappropriate or out of line)

[SMotaal]

@GeoffreyBooth So can we say this issue is not actionable and if there is work to be done to address the high level concerns then we can explore those in separate issues if needed (thanks for taking the initiative though)?

[GeoffreyBooth]

Well at least we can have a document—a wiki page, a Google doc, something—where we can scratch out who’s working on what. Something editable to help keep the team organized.

[SMotaal]

So do we want to propose the idea of a project board in the meeting?

But how would we structure that?