Merge "Drop Technical Committee meetings"
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2017-04-25 Replace Technical Committee meetings
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===============================================
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The Technical Committee meetings have become a barrier for some folks in the
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community (TC and non-TC members) to participate in some discussions. Below is a
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list with some positive and negative aspects of the current format:
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Positive aspects of the current format:
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* A quorum of the TC is required to hold the meeting
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* The meeting agenda is a reasonable concise summary of what the TC is doing
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* The IRC logs of the meeting, read alongside Gerrit, are a reasonable
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record of the debate
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* The meeting can be a quick way to reach out to members of the TC to discuss
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how to move a particular proposal or idea forward.
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* The meeting is used to make time to resolve disagreements and build
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consensus around the particular topics that need progressing.
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* The meeting provides a weekly rhythm that forces TC members to regularly pay
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attention to TC initiatives, and therefore keeps efforts progressing.
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* It's a known time when other parts of the community can show up and interact
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with the TC
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Negative aspects of the current format:
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* It takes place a specific time of day, even if we have rotating time slots,
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we are always excluding someone.
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* The fast paced nature of the IRC meetings can exclude many for the
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conversation. Many native English speakers struggle to keep track of the
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conversation and get their point across. It is even worse for non-native
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English speakers.
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* Feels like many conversations happen outside the meeting in non-open ways,
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we should make it easy to have more open conversations.
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All of this is fighting the goals laid out in the TC 2019 vision around
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diversity of OpenStack leadership and in particular in the TC. We must
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do better.
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Global Sensitivity
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------------------
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As we quickly evolve our process, we need to be mindful of the challenges
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non-native English speakers and teams spread across the globe. Success is
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when all in our community feel able to contribute to the best of their
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ability within our community.
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Keeping a rhythm
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----------------
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The weekly meeting gives us a good regular cadence to keep progress moving
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forward. When we loose the regular meeting, we really need to keep this
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cadence. This should not be merely be a summary of what has happened, but
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rather should include a call to action and priority setting, much like the
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existing meeting agenda that is sent 24 hours before the current meeting.
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The TC chair will be responsible for sending a weekly status update to the
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development mailing list, which includes:
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* Highlights of what the TC has got done over the last week
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* Gerrit patches and email threads that need attention over the coming week
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* List of reviews that have enough support to be merged. They will be merged
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after a 48 hour period of waiting for any final objections. This can be
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accelerated, as normal, using the existing house rules.
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It is likely the above will be built in a collaborative way using tools such
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as gerrit, wiki pages and etherpads that track the TC's work.
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When needing to discuss and debate what is currently the highest priority,
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replying to the weekly checkpoint email can be a good starting point for
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that debate.
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Office hours
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------------
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The weekly meeting is a good time for non-TC members to interact with TC
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members. However the timing is very poor for many members of the community.
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We can replace this part of the weekly meeting with office hours.
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Schedule a set of slots so there are current members of the TC present in the
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#openstack-tc IRC channel and there is a good time for folks from any timezone
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to drop in and ask questions.
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Debating
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--------
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Currently, the weekly meeting is used to debate topics that are currently
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in review and possibly close to getting merged. Doing this in the meeting
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makes it clear when something will be debated so people can join in that
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debate, and the debate is clearly recorded in the meeting logs.
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Using the current meeting format and agendas for debate artificially limits the
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bandwidth to what can be agreed within one hour a week. Loosing this restriction
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should allow for much higher bandwidth, if we are successful.
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While email and gerrit conversations provide a good asynchronous mechanism to
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debate, sometimes it is more efficient to have a synchronous conversation to
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build understanding and consensus on a particular topic. Therefore, In case of
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standing disagreements on some topics, the TC chair can call for a meeting to
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discuss that specific topic. The meeting would be chaired by the TC chair or any
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other member of the TC (hopefully neutral on the topic).
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Any synchronous conversation (be they ad-hoc or during office hours) should be
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summarised on the relevant gerrit review, or if not available, the relevant ML
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thread. If the debated happened on IRC, a link to the IRC logs must be included.
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These ad-hoc conversations should happen in logged mediums that can be easily
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referenced in the summaries that will be provided.
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Every decision should happen on asynchronous means, following the voting
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process, regardless of whether there was a synchronous discussion or not.
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Shared Language
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---------------
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As things are debated in the current IRC meeting, we often go off track
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and discover interesting things that need to be defined for us to make
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progress. Such as what do we mean by "upstream support", or what do we
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mean by "deprecated". With tags and resolutions we can build up this
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common set of definitions, so we all start talking about the same thing.
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This free flowing conversation should be continued even without the regular
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weekly meetings. Adhoc IRC conversations are likely to lead to interesting
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ideas that should be debated more formally in their own right.
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We have succeeded if we continue to refine our shared language in a way
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that makes it easier to join in the debates.
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