On Wed, Aug 5, 2015 at 5:20 PM, Tim Starling <tstarling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
I've been trying to encourage a certain structure
to our weekly IRC
meetings, by means of some brief statements in the meeting and by
talking to people afterwards about what I was trying to achieve. But
this approach has led to frustration and miscommunication. I think
it's about time I wrote my thoughts out in full for everyone.
What I want is pretty modest and achievable.
I want to have a brief wrap-up period, lasting 5-10 minutes at the end
of the meeting, where the regular flow of discussion is suspended, and
we instead focus on helping the RFC author and other implementors, by
producing action items, meeting summary notes, and if possible, RFC
resolution (acceptance or rejection).
At the end of this wrap-up period, the #endmeeting command will be
given. Then you are free to continue your discussions unlogged,
without expecting all relevant parties to remain in attendance.
We are all engineers, and we love thinking about hard problems and
clever solutions. That is why it is important that discussion be
suspended. Otherwise, it is too difficult to focus on the meeting goals.
Thanks for sending this out Tim. I agree that your ask is both modest
and achievable. I'll try to not only follow it but also help remind
others during the meetings. It's easy to get caught up in
debate/problem solving and miss the point that these meetings are to
help the RfC author plan next steps towards getting their changes
approved and implemented. I know I have myself been guilty of that in
the past.
I think another modest change would be to begin the meeting with a
clear statement from the presiding representative of the architecture
committee (typically Tim) and the RfC author which parts to the RfC
are most in need of feedback at the current time. I think that some
meetings have been derailed by an early discussion of minutia and at
the end of the hour both you and the author have been left wondering
if any progress was made.
Bryan
--
Bryan Davis Wikimedia Foundation <bd808(a)wikimedia.org>
[[m:User:BDavis_(WMF)]] Sr Software Engineer Boise, ID USA
irc: bd808 v:415.839.6885 x6855