<div dir="ltr">+teampractices<div><br></div></div><div class="gmail_extra"><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Thu, Jul 2, 2015 at 4:17 PM, Greg Grossmeier <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:greg@wikimedia.org" target="_blank">greg@wikimedia.org</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">Hello all,<br>
<br>
First, some history and context:<br>
<br>
The #roadmap project[0] in our Phabricator instance was set up by Erik M<br>
as a trial way of tracking upcoming releases, deployments, and generally<br>
"new things of note", as these previously weren't tracked in one place.<br>
It has a workboard[1] that is is broken up into:<br>
* one column for each week for the current month<br>
* one column for each remaining month in the current quarter<br>
* then "not soon"<br>
<br>
The scope of this project covered both "things that might break the site<br>
or are otherwise risky" and also "things people might expect to be<br>
notified about". At the time things got released quite often without a<br>
standard way for people to find that they were coming.<br>
<br>
I helped Erik with maintaining this project because it was also useful<br>
for our weekly "roadmap and deployments update" meeting where most WMF<br>
engineering managers got together for about 15-30 minutes to go over:<br>
* What, of note, is going out next week?<br>
* What, of note, is going out in the near term (i.e.: next few weeks)?<br>
* Anything else we should know about?<br>
<br>
Outcomes of this meeting were:<br>
* An updated outline of upcoming deployments on the Deployment<br>
Calendar[2]<br>
** This helped inform the work of the WMF RelEng and Ops teams,<br>
especially<br>
* A time/space for people (especially Erik or others with intimate<br>
"community knowledge/intuition") to object to something going out at<br>
all, or at the proposed time<br>
<br>
<br>
Since this project was set up, Guillaume started the #user-notice and<br>
#developer-notice projects [4][5], which cover the "things to tell<br>
people about" a lot better, are much more general covering incidents and<br>
planned outages as well as code deployments, and are communicated out<br>
via volunteer translators to dozens of community notice boards every<br>
week.<br>
<br>
<br>
== Current world / Assessment ==<br>
<br>
We are still using the #roadmap project for a lot of things that don't<br>
risk deployment/stability disruption, and also updating the Deployments<br>
Calendar on wikitech. It is my opinion that there is not enough gain<br>
from maintaining both work products to justify the effort, especially as<br>
#user-notice and #developer-notice have become so valuable.<br>
<br>
<br>
== Proposal ==<br>
<br>
I propose that we discontinue the use of #roadmap.<br>
<br>
Potential gaps created by the deprecating of #roadmap and my proposed<br>
solutions:<br>
<br>
* Lack of a project that tracks big upcoming software/product releases<br>
** The #release[3] project was created for this<br>
<br>
* Lack of a time-scale perspective of upcoming releases/deployments<br>
** I believe that the Deployments Calendar[2], while imperfect (wiki<br>
templates), fulfills this<br>
<br>
* Users aren't informed of upcoming changes<br>
** the #user-notice[4] project in Phabricator should be used for that<br>
<br>
<br>
== Expectations ==<br>
<br>
To successfully do this (deprecate #roadmap) I expect all WMF<br>
Engineering teams (as the group of developers I have more influence over<br>
versus the Wikimedia engineering community) to pro-actively communicate<br>
out their plans, in public, with the appropriate use of the Deployments<br>
Calendar and the #user-notice Phabricator project. This means engaging<br>
with the Community Engagement/Liaison team when appropriate.<br>
<br>
In no small way this is me, as Release Manager, showing trust in the<br>
work of the WMF Engineering teams (which includes the product managers).<br>
Do good things with it :-)<br>
<br>
Let me know if you have any concerns,<br>
<br>
Greg<br>
<br>
<br>
[0] <a href="https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/1109/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/1109/</a><br>
[1] <a href="https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/1109/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/board/1109/</a><br>
[2] <a href="https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://wikitech.wikimedia.org/wiki/Deployments</a><br>
[3] <a href="https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/1333/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/project/profile/1333/</a><br>
[4] <a href="https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/user-notice/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/user-notice/</a><br>
[5] <a href="https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/developer-notice/" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/tag/developer-notice/</a><br>
<span class="HOEnZb"><font color="#888888"><br>
--<br>
| Greg Grossmeier GPG: B2FA 27B1 F7EB D327 6B8E |<br>
| <a href="http://identi.ca" rel="noreferrer" target="_blank">identi.ca</a>: @greg A18D 1138 8E47 FAC8 1C7D |<br>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><div><br></div>-- <br><div class="gmail_signature"><div dir="ltr">Arthur Richards<div>Team Practices Manager</div><div>[[User:Awjrichards]]</div><div>IRC: awjr</div><div>+1-415-839-6885 x6687</div></div></div>
</div>