A half-baked idea for presenting and using the strategy 2028 logic model after this summer

Project Discussion
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I’m working on the strategic plan roadmap (along with, you know, the work that moves us down the first part of that road), and I am having some ideas for phases we’re not ready for yet. This isn’t meant to be part of the current phase of discussion, so I’m not going to put this on the strategy2028 topic index right now. But since we started a discussion, here it is…

“Active” logic model

  • When we get to the “practical” side — Inputs / Activities / Ouputs — I’d like our final model to have active links (or be fed from) real issue trackers. That is, each of those things should correspond to a ticket or card or epic or milestone or whatever.
    • This implies a dedicated web app to display the logic model.
      • which is probably bad
        • but how bad really?
    • could also propagate “stoplight status” up the chart
  • and then, it’d be awesome to fill the outcomes column with live metrics
1 Like
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A fully-formed logic model webapp would be a fun side project for you to work on and run as a service. :slight_smile: In theory, we might be able to come up with a Python script that would produce a static html page. But maybe that’s not worth the effort?

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Oh. I. Know. :classic_smiley:

That is definitely what it would be if I do it.[1]

Let’s put a pin in that. I have the feeling that it might be more than a gimmick — there’s a real risk that we put in the work to make a plan we feel great about, and then two years later things have changed and rather than updating we just kind of abandon parts as they get difficult. But I’m not ready to really think it through yet. (It’d have to be something flexible – we can’t really expect every Objective we come up with to be measurable in real time.

  1. Well, not definitely. Small chance I’d make it a Flutter app? Or write it in Rust because, you know, Rust. ↩︎

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Why not use GitLab epics and issues, and then leverage some of the Gantt chart / milestone-mapping features like we are exploring for the Fedora Badges revitalization?

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I am not sure we should (or, effectively, if we can) require all teams and projects working on this to use that same tooling and workflow.

Plus, roadmaps a “Premium” non-open-source GitLab feature. If we’re going to mandate anything, we should bring Taiga back. :-/

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I am trying to understand: the proposal is to make a new web app with its own workflow, where each input/activity/output can be linked to an issue/ticket/card/milestone within different teams? I’m trying to understand at what point we are requiring all teams and projects working on this to use the same tooling and workflow. If not GitLab, then what? A web app?

Maybe I am not understanding this idea?

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It does say “half baked”. :slight_smile:

I am imagining the finalized Strategy 2028 logic model as a dashboard (in the “single pane of glass” vein). It would not have its own workflow. Instead, it would gather items from whatever tooling the various related teams are using. Those tools are likely to have concrete representations of Activities and Outputs (a milestone might be an Output, while tasks are activities.[1] They might also have some tracking of Outcomes / Key Results — but those might come from a separate source.

I don’t expect we’d want every task to show up on the dashboard, but instead there could be some indicator of activity and “stoplight status”, with a link to each tracker.

Then, that status could propagate to towards the right on the dashboard, giving an at-a-glance view of which Objectives are on track and which seem at risk. At the same time, we could propagate metrics which indicate a desired Impact is emerging — and the contributor goal itself — back to the various projects.

  1. Most individual trackers will have Inputs/Resources as implicit, but we at least identify team members … and find some other way for teams to tag other kinds of inputs in whatever tool they’re using. ↩︎