Hi Kunal, Thank you for the feedback. To address your question about the relationship between this work and the Movement Strategy recommendation to establish a Technology Council, I will say that I do not believe they are addressing the same set of needs, but I can see how the work of each body will be related. What is proposed as the purpose for the Technology Council is "to oversee the process of *developing new technical features*" (emphasis theirs). Though the words in the recommendation do not describe it this way, I see this as a product development and management function. My perspective on the purpose of the TDMP is somewhat different: in the pursuit of ongoing product development or operations support, we need to make decisions in an engineering capacity, and those decisions have consequences for system architecture, operational outcomes, and paths of software development. It isn't a way to make product decisions, and it does have to reflect and consider the operational responsibilities that reside with Foundation staff. That said, I can see a possible scenario where many of the same volunteers are interested in both functions, though I do not think that will be true of all volunteers, and it is likely not the case that Foundation staff participants would be the same in both cases, as our roles are more sharply defined. I will be watching to see how the Movement Strategy recommendation is moved forward, to continue to verify that my understanding remains accurate, and to see what impact that may have on our work.
On the matter of the "Core team", I have given the task of planning and running the retro to staff members whose work I can direct. The retro has been planned from the beginning to be inclusive of as wide a range of volunteer voices and perspectives as we can manage within the scope of the work. In this way, it is not really different from any other operational process that the Foundation runs, where volunteer voices may be included but volunteers don't have the responsibility of managing the processes. The retro itself is not a governance process, and it won't involve making decisions of consequence. It is an information gathering process, to build a broad and comprehensive perspective on the TDMP. Reflection on the information we have gathered should inform decisions we can make, particular decisions to change or adjust the TDMP itself, but those decisions are not themselves part of the retro. I'm looking forward to your participation in the retro activities! Tajh Taylor (he/him/his) VP, Data Science & Engineering Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/> On Thu, Apr 13, 2023 at 2:56 AM Kunal Mehta <lego...@debian.org> wrote: > Hi Tajh, > > On 3/30/23 09:18, Tajh Taylor wrote: > > For quite some time now, we have experienced issues with the Technical > > Decision Making Process (TDMP). Volunteer contributors and staff have > > asked if we are still operating the Technical Decision Forum (TDF, the > > member body that participates in the TDMP). Communication about it from > > the Foundation has been inconsistent, and interest from the volunteer > > community in joining has been low. Some of our most senior engineers on > > Foundation staff have expressed that the process is flawed, doesn’t > > create room for discussion about the technical issues surrounding a > > decision, and doesn’t ensure participation by all stakeholders who may > > be affected by the decision. Suffice it to say, the current state of > > affairs leaves many participants wanting more. > > I'm glad to see this stated in the open, I think your summary is a > decent starting point of why the TDF never worked. I do think a retro or > post-mortem of the TDF from this perspective is needed. > > From the talk page: > > The intention of the retrospective is to understand the pain points > and the areas to improve the current process. > > What from the TDF is worth salvaging to the point that it makes sense to > iterate on top of? More importantly, what is the value in putting in > this work when we already have a pending Movement Strategy > recommendation to establish a Technology Council[1]? Surely that's a > better base to start from? > > As much as I respect the people listed on the "Core team", I'm pretty > concerned that they're all WMF staff, given that we're talking about > performing a retro on a body that explicitly excluded volunteers for > most of its lifetime and as you said, weren't interested in joining once > that option was given to them. > > [1] > < > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Movement_Strategy/Initiatives/Technology_Council > > > > Thanks, > -- Kunal / Legoktm > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list -- wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe send an email to wikitech-l-le...@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/postorius/lists/wikitech-l.lists.wikimedia.org/
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