Hi Kunal,
Thank you for the feedback. To address your question about the relationship between this work and the Movement Strategy recommendation to establish a Technology Council, I will say that I do not believe they are addressing the same set of needs, but I can see how the work of each body will be related. What is proposed as the purpose for the Technology Council is "to oversee the process of developing new technical features" (emphasis theirs). Though the words in the recommendation do not describe it this way, I see this as a product development and management function. My perspective on the purpose of the TDMP is somewhat different: in the pursuit of ongoing product development or operations support, we need to make decisions in an engineering capacity, and those decisions have consequences for system architecture, operational outcomes, and paths of software development. It isn't a way to make product decisions, and it does have to reflect and consider the operational responsibilities that reside with Foundation staff. That said, I can see a possible scenario where many of the same volunteers are interested in both functions, though I do not think that will be true of all volunteers, and it is likely not the case that Foundation staff participants would be the same in both cases, as our roles are more sharply defined. I will be watching to see how the Movement Strategy recommendation is moved forward, to continue to verify that my understanding remains accurate, and to see what impact that may have on our work.
On the matter of the "Core team", I have given the task of planning and running the retro to staff members whose work I can direct. The retro has been planned from the beginning to be inclusive of as wide a range of volunteer voices and perspectives as we can manage within the scope of the work. In this way, it is not really different from any other operational process that the Foundation runs, where volunteer voices may be included but volunteers don't have the responsibility of managing the processes. The retro itself is not a governance process, and it won't involve making decisions of consequence. It is an information gathering process, to build a broad and comprehensive perspective on the TDMP. Reflection on the information we have gathered should inform decisions we can make, particular decisions to change or adjust the TDMP itself, but those decisions are not themselves part of the retro.
I'm looking forward to your participation in the retro activities!
