[Wikitech-l] Followup: Technical Decision Making Retro

TLDR: The Foundation will be conducting a retrospective on the Technical Decision Making Process. To the entire Wiki technical community, For quite some time now, we have experienced issues with the Technical Decision Making Process (TDMP). Volunteer contributors and staff have asked if we are still operating the Technical Decision Forum (TDF, the member body that participates in the TDMP). Communication about it from the Foundation has been inconsistent, and interest from the volunteer community in joining has been low. Some of our most senior engineers on Foundation staff have expressed that the process is flawed, doesn’t create room for discussion about the technical issues surrounding a decision, and doesn’t ensure participation by all stakeholders who may be affected by the decision. Suffice it to say, the current state of affairs leaves many participants wanting more. We must also remind ourselves of the purpose of a decision making process. The decisions are not meant to be random or isolated. They should be aligned to our technical strategy, and we should be able to look at the decisions we have made and understand how they advance our progress against that strategy. If the process is working as it should, the decisions that are produced should represent settled wisdom, and not need to be revisited too quickly. The goals for a well-run process include: - A straightforward, widely understood decision making process, that - Facilitates impactful technical decisions to be made in a timely manner, - Incorporates input from staff and volunteers in our technical community, with - Decisions that align with accountability for decision outcomes, and - Clear communication and transparent operations throughout the process. On examination of the contributing factors that have led us to this point, the factor that stands out to me is the need for clear accountability: accountability for the TDMP itself and accountability for each of the decisions we make. Technical decision making, beyond a certain magnitude, is a core organizational process for any engineering organization. It is therefore important for us to examine and improve this process from time to time to ensure organizational effectiveness. Not unrelated, regular retrospectives are a routine agile software engineering practice to enact continuous improvement. To keep our decision making process effective and efficient, we need to conduct regular retros. Overall accountability for maintaining an effective decision making process should rest with a person who is sufficiently able to marshal resources and address problems at a large scale – here at the Foundation, that resides in the executive level. The Foundation will be conducting a retro on the TDMP over the next couple of months. Because we don’t yet have a habit of doing retros on this process, and because there is a wide range of stakeholders we seek to hear from, the process will be a bit more structured than an ordinary retro, and will take more time. As we do more of these, we should get better at them. The feedback gathered through the retro will be used to make changes to improve the TDMP. Foundation staff will follow up with more information about the kickoff of the retro and what steps will follow. I am looking forward to wide participation in this retro. Here are the links to the relevant wiki page and Phab ticket: - Wiki page <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_decision_making/Technical_Decision-Making_Process_Retrospective_and_Consultation_plan> - Phabricator ticket <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T333235> Thank you! And apologies for all the crossposting. Tajh Taylor (he/him/his) VP, Data Science & Engineering Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>