Reflect and create a process for choosing quarterly goals

[GeorgianaElena]

Context

I believe this quarter we've been very good in setting the goals just in time and the mindset was more towards trying to scope them into actionable items, rather than relying on generic ones like we did in the past. Another new practice is that we started exclusively assigning goals to teams, rather than to individuals.

I think this is a very good step forward in improving the overall goal setting process. But there are still lots to learn and experiment and we need a place to store the process and its iterations, and also a mechanism for gathering feedback.

- [ ] https://github.com/2i2c-org/team-compass/issues/697
- [x] Provide feedback on [the proposed process for our quarterly goals setting](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EukvDeBk1JUiWQl30tFwhmXbY_It8RZhGAAS0NlhA2Q/edit#)
- [ ] https://github.com/2i2c-org/meta/issues/596
- [ ] https://github.com/2i2c-org/meta/issues/691

Proposal

I propose we start to create a process for choosing and setting the goals, starting from what we have now (I am not sure if one exists already?) and then gather feedback/ideas from the team for future improvements.

I believe it's important to have intentional sessions when we reflect on both the goals of the previous quarter, but also on the process that was used to choose/scope/allocate them, so we can learn from it and improve it the next iteration.

I also believe it's important to decide who takes responsibility for this process and for iterating it further (like we did for the support process in https://github.com/2i2c-org/team-compass/issues/655).

Updates and actions

Maybe start from somewhere simple like:

• document the current goal setting process
• decide responsibility for this process

And then:

• create a mechanism for reflecting about it and leaving feedback about it
• agree on a few key possible improvements
• the lead of this process implements them
• repeat

[damianavila]

document the current goal setting process

697 is capturing that first step, and keeping this issue open because it is more general and has other nice ideas I agree to.

decide responsibility for this process

I would say this process should be driven by me as the Eng Manager and the Tech Lead as a team (which is what we essentially did for Q2 planning)

create a mechanism for reflecting about it and leaving feedback about it

Quite important! I am still trying to figure out what would be a good process for that retrospective.

[choldgraf]

I've been reflecting on this one, and wanted to share a few ideas:

• This feels more like an organization-wide goal rather than something engineering-specific. While engineering has spearheaded the creation of this goal-setting process, we want the process itself to be cross-functional so that we don't create silos of information.
• To that extent, I suggest that we increase the scope of this to incorporate partnerships (@colliand) and community (@jmunroe) and product (@jmunroe), and identify a process that brings all stakeholders to the conversation. I think our goal should be to have a set of goals that all parts of 2i2c know about, were involved in creating (at a high level anyway), and know their responsibility in completing.
• There are also area-specific aspects of the goal-setting process we might want to track separately. For example:
  • Partnerships: Define the grants and major contracts we want to prioritize in a quarter. Define targets for new hub contracts.
  • Community: Define targets for community-facing events like workshops.
  • Product: Define targets for listening sessions / feedback gathering / etc.
  • And so on...
• Finally, we may want to define some recurring actions as part of each quarter. For example:
  • Org strategy meetings to regularly check up on goal progress
  • Meetings to do retrospectives towards the end of quarters
  • Meetings to finalize goals for next quarter
  • Actions to take as part of this, like writing newsletters for external stakeholders
  • Common structure that we want all goals to have (e.g. "Definition of done", "Single responsible person", "Supporting cast", etc)

Proposal

So here's a suggestion:

• Adapt this issue to be 2i2c-wide, and one that I spearhead
• Use https://github.com/2i2c-org/team-compass/issues/697 to document the current process
• Then create an engineering-specific issue to track improvements for that team that are in addition to the org-wide process
• @damianavila serves as a primary support person, and focuses his efforts on the engineering aspects of this.

[yuvipanda]

I fully support that this should be an org-wide process, and not silo'd to engineering! Let's expand and make sure it works for everyone. In particular, the general structure of:

1. Having a single person be the goal lead helps with diffusion of responsibility
2. Goals having 'teams' helps us factor in capacity and not overcommit
3. Monthly check-ins from the goal leads helps make sure we are on track & provides accountability
4. Clear 'definition of done' in the goal setting process helps refine this before we start working on things

[yuvipanda]

I've written down how I think the process went for Q2 in https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OweVv18mzCeVWg0VjjADi99fG9NIFvQ3p4BRfeNrImM/edit#, and think we can use it as a baseline for improvements for Q3. In addition, I'd love for us to expand this process outside of engineering to everyone in the team. I've also left TODO notes there that capture what I think is left to be done. We can hopefully do more prep work here, and then do more work on it during the team meeting.

[choldgraf]

Proposed quarterly goals system

I wrote out a proposed process for our quarterly goals setting. It tries to clarify some questions around what form goals should take etc. Can we quickly iterate and align on this process, and then follow it for our current goals planning for Q3?

[damianavila]

Please, let me go away from the general discussion for a little bit...

Based on Chris's proposal and given the short time we have ahead before the start of Q3, I want to propose for the upcoming iteration, the following timeline:

1. Async refinement of existing (or new) proto-goals (in all the areas) into goal proposals from today up to Jun 14th
2. A first meeting on Jun 14th for goal refinement in a sync fashion (complementary to the above async process)
3. Async "maturation" of the goal proposals from Jun 14th to Jun 21st
4. A second meeting on Jun 21st for the selection of goals proposals and team assignment accordingly to existing capacity
5. Async feedback of goals proposal and team assignments
6. (IF NEEDED) A final meeting on Jun 28th for last iteration and final decisions

If I do not hear disagreements by the end of the week, I will send the corresponding invites next Monday morning.

[choldgraf]

I've created a planning issue for Q3 2023 below to kick-off this process. I adopted @damianavila's proposed schedule and added it to the issue as our tasklist.

Let's use that to do one iteration, and then close out this issue when we've encoded the process after learning from this time. Then we can iterate from there.

• https://github.com/2i2c-org/meta/issues/596

[choldgraf]

More refinements to the goals / sprints process

I've gone through a few more iterations and updated the process for our goals and sprints. I know this is somewhat of a moving target as we are both following and defining the process at the same time. Nonetheless I'd love any comments from folks:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1EukvDeBk1JUiWQl30tFwhmXbY_It8RZhGAAS0NlhA2Q/edit?usp=sharing

[choldgraf]

Process to try this quarter is set

We've had a few more iterations and I think that this process is nearly ready to try for this quarter. @pnasrat and @damianavila there are a few comments in the process proposal that I'd like you to decide on - please go with whatever feels best to you. Other than that, I think that we can move forward unless there are objections.

• Process proposal doc
• Learning tables for this quarter
• https://github.com/2i2c-org/meta/issues/596

[GeorgianaElena]

We now have a process for choosing quarterly goals 🎉 This issue can be closed I believe.

[damianavila]

@GeorgianaElena, I will reopen this one because there is a missing last piece around documenting what we currently have (see the last task at the top post).