[teampractices] The Rule of Three (+1)

[Tomasz Finc]

CC'ing  (teampractices at lists.wikimedia.org) so that their aware of this.

This is what has enabled the mobile web team to have a balanced
decision making process that shares ownership across design, product,
engineering. This removes a lot of the asynchronous coordination you
would have to do after making an individual decision.

It's not always easy to get three people so good luck on the +1.

I'm really eager to see how it turns out and do lets us know on the
team practices list.

--tomasz


On Tue, Sep 17, 2013 at 10:24 AM, Terry Chay <tchay at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Hopefully I sent this to Nick Wilson :-)
>
> First of all, make sure all of you are on the e2 mailing list, so I won't
> spam you twice again. :-)
>
> …
>
> Tomasz can correct me if I'm wrong :-)
>
> The mobile team has a process point which they call the "Rule of Three."
> Originally, this came from Tomasz and Howie's observation that discussions
> involving three people have a different dynamic than discussions involving
> two. But the way it was adopted by the mobile web team was that when a
> discussion was going on with respect to mobile features or process, to make
> sure there was one representative from three departments in the discussion
> before consensus is reached. That usually meant Maryana (Product Manager),
> Jon Robson (Engineering Tech Lead), and Vibha (Design) would get together
> and hash things out by consensus.
>
> …
>
> I think a variation of this idea is worth adopting. Whenever there is a
> discussion going on in Flow in one team, to make sure one of three areas is
> represented there. For instance if an engineer has an idea for a new
> feature, or a reinterpretation of an existing one that is beyond just
> completing development, just make sure to find at least one person in
> Product and one person in Design before proceeding/resolving/having the
> autonomy to do anything. If you can't drag the missing person in, just ping
> them on IRC on #wikimedia-corefeatures and relay the discussion there.
>
> The variation is that I'd like community/product analysis to be a part of
> this. From a logistical standpoint, it'd not practical to turn this into a
> rule of 4, so I'd like it to make three (plus one). This means the rule of
> three to resolve, and the missing leg would be informed as soon as is
> reasonable (and can provide their input then).
>
> I think this will make sure ideas achieve consensus before proceeding as
> well as create group autonomy. To the former, we don't want a discussion to
> occur without being informed by each of the expertise of our focus areas. To
> the latter, we don't want the Flow team to operate from the top-down (from
> the director-level), a good idea can come from anywhere.
>
> Let's see how that goes.
>
> To my knowledge the focus areas are:
>
> Product
> ======
> Maryana Pinchuk
> (Howie Fung)
>
> Engineering
> =========
> Erik Bernhardson
> S Page
> Matthias Mullie
> Andrew Garret
> Benny Situ (he will move up to #3 after he's onboarded in Flow)
> (I do not count!)
>
> Design
> ======
> Brandon Harris
> May Galloway
> Vibha Bamba
> Jared Zimmerman
>
> Community
> =========
> Oliver Keyes
> Nick Wilson
> (community members to follow?)
>
> Whenever you are in a conversation about Flow other than just completing an
> already agreed assigned task (MVP, the backlog, a new feature/design, etc.,
> not just doing the design, development, or editing Mingle as previously
> agreed), make sure you have three people from different areas before
> proceeding or the discussion didn't happen. After anything is resolved,
> inform someone from the missing focus area as soon as possible.
>
> Feel free to change the people in the focus areas (or opt-out), but let's
> try it this way and see how it goes. We can tweak it later if it isn't
> working out, but I think it's a good idea worth testing out.
>
> Take care,
>
> terry
>
>
>
> terry chay  최태리
> Director of Features Engineering
> Wikimedia Foundation
> “Imagine a world in which every single human being can freely share in the
> sum of all knowledge. That's our commitment.”
>
> p: +1 (415) 839-6885 x6832
> m: +1 (408) 480-8902
> e: tchay at wikimedia.org
> i: http://terrychay.com/
> w: http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Tychay
> aim: terrychay
>