Hi Victoria and Toby. Thank you for this information. I am a little hazy about a couple of points and I hope that you can provide more detail.
1. My understanding from your email is that the converged Core Platform Team will exist inside of the Technology Department, but the Platform Evolution Program is a cross-department program. Can you explain further how the single-department nature of the Core Platform Team will be harmonized with the cross-department nature of the Platform Evolution CDP? 2. I have a concern regarding the statement "The Platform Evolution (PE) cross-departmental program (CDP) is approved in the annual plan for next fiscal year". That statement seems to conflict with the 2018-2019 WMF Annual Plan's current nature of being a draft that has not been approved by the WMF Board. Has the Platform Evolution CDP been approved for inclusion in the annual plan *draft*, or did this program get approved by the Board in advance of the rest of the WMF Annual Plan? Thank you, Pine ( https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Pine ) On Tue, Apr 10, 2018 at 10:57 AM, Victoria Coleman <vcole...@wikimedia.org> wrote: > Hi everyone, > > We are very pleased to be making three big announcements: > > 1. The Platform Evolution (PE) cross-departmental program (CDP) is > approved in the annual plan for next fiscal year. > > This PE CDP was developed with input from staff across our organization in > the Audiences and Technology Working Group. Together, these staff worked to > identify some of our most pressing issues while opening healthy discussions > between both departments and WMDE. > > Along with the other Technology programs funded in the annual plan, > funding of this program represents a renewed commitment by the Foundation > to the long term health of the technology that is key to supporting our > mission, staff and communities. > > > 2. We are creating the Core Platform team, a new converged platform and > services team to be the focus of the Platform Evolution CDP. > > > We are doing this in order to better support the PE CDP and begin the hard > work of re-architecting our technology stack into a more sustainable and > flexible platform, in support of the Wikimedia movement strategic > direction. The MediaWiki Platform team alongside the Services Platform team > hold some of the most senior technologists of our community. Their skill > sets and experience are vitally important for the success of the CDP so > they will be moving into the new Core Platform team. We want to thank Tim > Starling and Marko Obrovac for their hard work, leadership and dedication > which has brought us to this point. They and their teams are doing > incredibly important work to sustain our software stack day in day out > while also looking into the future and guiding the reengineering of our > platform to support the mission for the years ahead. > > > 3. Corey Floyd will be joining the Technology Department to lead the Core > Platform team. > > In addition to day to day management, Corey will operate in the program > management capacity for the PE CDP. Corey was instrumental in formulating > the PE CDP, assembling the program through extensive needs analysis, > synthesis, and collaboration with Foundation team members and WMDE. He > brings a proven track record in clarifying stakeholder needs and > translating them into amazing products. > > As many of you know, Corey started at the Foundation as an iOS engineer, > was promoted to manage the iOS and Android native apps engineers who worked > tirelessly to evolve the open source apps into award winners beloved by > millions of our users, and has been operating in an > engineering product owner capacity for the Infrastructure team within > Audiences-Readers. He is known for his work ethic, thought leadership, real > world experience, and collegial spirit. > > Audiences will be working to backfill the duties of Corey in Apps > engineering management and Reading Infrastructure product ownership, and > work is already underway to close these gap in conjunction with Corey’s > cutover to Technology. > > We’re happy to make the Platform Evolution CDP official. And please join > me in welcoming Corey to Technology, where he’ll transition on July 1, > 2018. We’ll be sharing more updates about the team and the PE CDP in the > coming weeks. > > > We are incredibly excited! > > > Victoria and Toby > _______________________________________________ > MediaWiki-l mailing list > To unsubscribe, go to: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l > _______________________________________________ MediaWiki-l mailing list To unsubscribe, go to: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/mediawiki-l
