Howdy folks! Our first community roundtable for Fedora Badges was earlier today, and we covered a lot of ground in our one hour. One thing we did not cover were the sub-teams, initially discussed in a previous topic.
So, let’s use this topic and expand these sub-teams out as semi-independent groups within the Fedora Badges project. I’ll start with questions for everyone to consider (and answer here!), as well as my own thoughts about the sub-teams.
As a reminder, we previously discussed two sub-teams, Design and Development. Each sub-team would be stewarded by two co-captains (acting in Project Manager roles).
My questions
- What are short-term and long-term goals for each sub-team?
- What are good topics for introductory meetings in each sub-team?
- How often does each sub-team need to meet in order to be on track?
Context
Here is a quick recap of how I currently understand sub-teams based on our last discussion…
The Design sub-team organizes and leads the design programs around Fedora Badges. This includes artwork design, managing templates and brand kits for new Badges, and possibly a UI/UX component for Fedora Badges 2.0. Currently, @ekidney and @riecatnor volunteered to co-captain this sub-team and organize efforts.
The Development sub-team organizes the rewrite outlined in the conclusion of the ARC investigation. This includes software development, system architecture, engineering, integration, and possibly system administration work on Badges. This sub-team will target a rewritten, modern platform for Fedora Badges with an aim for long-term maintenance. Currently, @t0xic0der and @jefferson2z volunteered to co-captain this sub-team.
What I’d like
More and earlier planning is required to successfully execute a new project from start to finish, as compared to feature development on an already-established project with a release cadence. So, each sub-team needs a set of clear, measurable goals[1] and to come up with ways to know whether the sub-team is on track or not.
For the Design sub-team, I feel like badge artwork creation has a good workflow. I want a metric to know how many Fedora Badges receive an approved final design each month. At first, we could manually track the new badges created every month in order to demonstrate steady activity of badge design, while also calling out community attention to new badge-earning opportunities. Later on, this could become automated with support from the Development sub-team. The UI/UX work is not as defined to me, so it would be good for members of the Design sub-team to determine whether UI/UX is an area they want to own or to defer to another Fedora team (e.g. Websites & Apps, or Design).
For the Development sub-team, I think a Gantt chart would be a useful first deliverable for the team. Given what we know so far about the proposed stack, what would be key milestones to reach project completion and how much time should each key milestone take? Something like a Gantt chart as a blueprint makes mapping new development easier. Work can be divided with clear requirements for each milestone’s success. Even if the blueprint is not perfect and needs to be adapted over time, coming in first with a plan for how we will deliver a rewritten platform keeps us moving toward a clear finish line.
This is my early thinking on sub-teams. What do y’all think? Is anything here surprising or that you feel is missing? Or does this make sense?
My hope is that by the end of this topic, each sub-team and the co-captains feel prepared and ready to take on the first steps for Fedora Badges 2.0.
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I like S.M.A.R.T. criteria goals: Specific, Measurable, Achieveable, Relevant, Time-bound. These goals work well for a team focused on delivering for a single project. ↩︎