On Thu, Jan 15, 2015 at 10:57 PM, Tim Starling <tstarl...@wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Sorry to labour the point, but the way to go about this at present is pretty > straightforward, > and it doesn't involve the architecture committee. You just convince the > management (Damon, > Erik, etc.) that it is a good thing to do, get yourself appointed head of the > "MediaWiki 2.0" team, > hire a bunch of people who agree with your outlook, get existing engineers > transferred to your > team. Yeah, there's a lot of truth to that (though also a lot of opportunities to circumvent organizational structure). WMF is a hierarchical org that operates internally through pretty conventional decision-making structures. On the flip side, the org has increasingly pushed to give individuals a very high degree of latitude of pushing and promoting projects, and leading them to conclusion (hence the project leads on the top priorities and such). Within the organizational pattern we use, the way to complement Damon's and my roles is usually with a CTO who has deep technical experience & commitment and ongoing day-to-day involvement writing code, leading projects, and driving architectural change. That person may have some of the most senior engineers in the org reporting to them, and has a serious seat at the table in driving projects that satisfy highly technical concerns. I'm supportive of such a role (if properly defined and socialized), because in the model we're operating in, it seems one of the best ways to complement the team structure. I'm also supportive of experimenting with less conventional models, like creating more official representation for an Architecture Committee in management decisions. Gravity is going to pull us more towards the conventional ways of doing things (it always does), so if you want to promote a different idea we need to start articulating and refining it. Erik -- Erik Möller VP of Product & Strategy, Wikimedia Foundation _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list Wikitech-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
