[Management] [Product Council] Incubation outreach

[Clay Fenlason]

I take the point that as a matter of presentation for general
readership that the project is not the best organizing principle.  I'd
also agree that we need to make every effort to facilitate the joining
of efforts and close coordination of complementary aims.  Further, it
could be helpful in retaining objectivity if the release-readiness
decisions down the road were framed as, e.g. "Is the online testing
capability ready for release" rather than "Has the project team
delivered?"

At the same time I think that the PC's interaction will most often be
with particular sets of people with particular roadmaps, the whos and
whats of which it's hard to talk about clearly without using the word
'project.'  When they move from R&D to Incubation they may still have
only a small team and a narrow focus, and part of what happens in
incubation will be for efforts to draw together. Yet it seems to me
part of keeping the barrier to entry low to have people coming into it
thinking about their particular project. I suppose I'm proposing that
the word is still appropriate, but in a more targeted way for
facilitating the engagement and planning of a particular effort. I'm
not sure, for example, that a project focus doesn't also help
contributors find names of people they want to talk to and get
involved with - it's not just for the project team itself.

Maybe the issue is not the use of the word project, but rather the
project's implied scope, e.g. "Tests&Quizzes" is not helpful in its
suggestions of capability ownership where a codename like "Samigo"
doesn't tend to introduce the same assumptions.

I'll work to lay things out differently, though.  I have a picture of
how that might work.

~Clay

On Thu, Aug 27, 2009 at 3:20 AM, <john at caret.cam.ac.uk> wrote:
> Can I make a plea for different language? It may not be a big deal, but to me
> "project" emphasises the idea that a group of people are in charge of an aspect
> of code. I would prefer us to be talking about categories of functionality, e.g.
> "grading" and describing the range of work and options within that category. So,
> for example, in a section on online testing, you would find out about Sakai
> support for formative and summative assessment, the activity in Etudes
> Consortium around Mneme and its current status, the activity in Stanford and
> other places around Samigo/T&Q and its current status, the activity with LTI to
> bring in 3rd party tools and how gradebook integration can be handled in such
> situations, etc. I think if we approach documentation this way it will be
> easier to answer questions such as "what does Sakai do in support of online
> assessment" and projects will be naturally brought together and informed of
> each others work. Basing the focus on projects requires others to do the
> features synthesis and facilitates duplication. I would argue that the only
> virtue of a project focus is for the project team itself, not for others.
>
> John
>
> Quoting Clay Fenlason <clay.fenlason at et.gatech.edu>:
>
>> A quick followup. I've now also got a set of pages in Confluence for
>> collecting this project documentation [1]. Each project is getting its
>> own page, and I'm starting to plug in empty doc templates for the
>> various leads of R&D projects to start filling in, assuming they care
>> to embark upon the process.
>>
>> ~Clay
>>
>> [1] http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/fgvtAw
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 25, 2009 at 4:48 PM, Clay
>> Fenlason<clay.fenlason at et.gatech.edu> wrote:
>> > fyi, I'm going out now, with the PC's draft of incubation criteria in
>> > hand (or rather self-documentation talking points) [1], and trying to
>> > recruit projects into incubation proactively, so that I might also get
>> > their questions and feedback. It's expected those talking points will
>> > be refined in conversation with project teams.
>> >
>> > If you're following along and would like to throw your hat into the
>> > ring with some new project, by all means. Questions and concerns
>> > raised on this list are also very welcome.
>> >
>> > I'll also be working to organize pages in Confluence to have
>> > documentation from these projects arranged for a general community
>> > readership. Not to mention that those "How Sakai Works" pages [2]
>> > still need some tending to.
>> >
>> > ~Clay
>> >
>> > [1] http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/ggLtAw
>> > [2] http://confluence.sakaiproject.org/x/sgTtAw
>> >
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