Hi All,

Over the past months I've been looking at how we make technical decisions. Wikimedia has significantly grown as a technical movement over the years and similar to how we scaled our technical systems we need to scale our human systems. I've proposed an evolution of the existing TechCom process. This is based on the past couple years that I've been involved in the facilitation of TechCom and research into decision making frameworks. I'm looking for your feedback over the next three weeks (until 5 November) to help me improve the proposed process. 

Key objectives of this evolved process is:

- Make the process more inclusive by shifting to representation by teams/groups instead of individuals
- Have clear timelines for when a decision will be made
- Being clear upfront about what stakeholders will be engaged
- Developing a clear lifecycle of a decision

This plan also introduces:

- Technical Decision Forum which will be composed of representatives of teams from Product and Tech, WMDE and independent +2 contributors.
- Templates for decision statement overviews and decision records

Please see the draft process here: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Proposal_for_a_Technical_Decision_Making_Process>

If you have questions or further feedback please use the talk page: <https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Proposal_for_a_Technical_Decision_Making_Process>

Thanks,

-Kate
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Kate Chapman (she/her/hers)
Director of Architecture, Architecture Team
Wikimedia Foundation