Major Change: Develop "Project Lifeboat" Process for New Project Onboarding

PamelaJohn commented 6 years ago

Develop A "Project Lifeboat" Process for New Project Onboarding

Projects go dormant when Team Leads experience a life-change

Developing a "Lifeboat Process" could keep open source projects alive & in use in the event Team Lead experiences a life-change

Plan

[x] Discuss creation of a space which would allow project leaders autonomy as well as a process for developing a plan for ProgCode to assist keeping the project live if/when the team lead must move on to another project due to a change in life circumstance.
[x] Notify the community by Saturday, 11/18 that this proposed major change will be on the Agenda for Monday, 11/20 Operations Meeting (per Change Process for Major Change)
[x] Place this item on the 11/20 Agenda for Community Discussion & Consent to Proceed with creating a Lifeboat Process for transferring OS projects to ProgCode.

Decision Making

Seeking consent to proceed with developing a Lifeboat Process for OS projects whose team lead has asked ProgCode to take over management of the OS resource. Implementation of the Lifeboat process which is developed will require a Volunteer Staff Supermajority vote per the Major Change section of the Change Process

jpb5013 commented 6 years ago

I really like this. We'll need to define out what the keys to the kingdom are and what information transitioning project leads will need to provide. It's often impossible to pick things up because of not knowing where to start.

Also thinking that this could be a framework for various projects (maybe even roadmap stuff), making a standard format for defining projects to allow for easier handoff.

PamelaJohn commented 6 years ago

12/4/2017 - Issue 225 was discussed. Consent to proceed developing a Lifeboat process was granted by unanimous decision of the volunteer staff. 12/4/2017 Ops Meeting Notes & Vote.

Once a process is developed, it must receive a supermajority vote of volunteer staff per the Change Process set forth for a Major Change.

stephenscapelliti commented 6 years ago

A Draft Project Lifeboat Process was proposed and discussed during the 05-21-18 Community Operations Meeting. The following notice was published in the #team-announcements, #general-chit-chat, and #team-leads (private) channels on 05-22-18:

NOTICE REGARDING PROJECT LIFEBOAT!

On December 4, 2017, the community voted to grant its consent to proceed with "Project Lifeboat", a process for developing a plan for ProgCode to assist with maintaining a project if and/or when the project team lead requires assistance. Project Lifeboat was outlined in Pilot Initiative Issue #225.

With the community's consent to proceed, a Lifeboat Process for the transfer of OS projects to ProgCode for management of those projects has been proposed. You can review the proposed process and offer your suggestions and comments here: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SQX36NO2tVwgiJdwAF0EHAh6TaMiQq6ZnHQlkhXhGGk/edit?usp=sharing

The Proposed Lifeboat Process will be discussed at the next Community Operations Meeting on May 28, 2018, and consent to implement will be requested at that time. As with all other Community Operations Meetings, everyone is welcome to attend and participate in the discussion and vote. Consistent with ProgCode processes, a recording of the meeting will be made available for viewing, and voting will remain open for 72 hours following the meeting.

Please feel free to contact @ stephen, @ pamela, or @ joepbreslin if you have any questions.

PamelaJohn commented 5 years ago

Yay!! This was a major accomplishment for the community!

PamelaJohn commented 5 years ago

New Question for Consideration wrt Project Lifeboat

Use Case:

An popular OS tech application has been built by members of the ProgCode community. The project's tech lead who has access permissions to all of the project's digital assets must step back from project leadership because of a change in life situation.

The remaining volunteer contributors would like to continue maintaining the app's OS repository.

QUESTION:

Does recruiting volunteers to maintain issues and fix bugs with the OS app infringe on ProgCode's promise of project autonomy?

Possible Solution

[ ] Include in Project Onboarding 1:1 process a discussion about Project Lifeboata
[ ] Develop a "break glass in case of emergency" means of accessing permissions to digital assets necessary to maintain OS projects developed within ProgCode in the event the tech lead needs to hand the project over to the community temporarily or on a permanent basis. This would probably require some discussion and agreement between the tech lead and volunteer contributors on the team as well as some level of written permission).
[ ] Create an Airtable form which the team lead can fill out which includes 1) URLs, logins and passwords for each digital asset necessary to transfer maintenance of the repo, 2) instructions for transferring ownership of digital assets to admin@progcode.org and 3) an indication about whether the transfer is temporary (if so, effective date) or permanent.
[ ] Include instructions for this process and link to a form which the team lead can submit to ProgCode disclosing the Projects Onboarding wiki.
[ ] Additional ideas from the community to be discussed.

stephenscapelliti commented 5 years ago

Additional considerations:

Consider whether an assessment should be conducted under the Project Lifeboat Process (including a community vote) at the time that a Team Lead elects a "break glass" option, so that the Team Lead will know whether the ProgCode community is willing to assume responsibility for the project.
Consider scenarios under which ProgCode might want the option to decline to exercise the "break glass" option at a later date, even after a community vote, due to a change in circumstances. To be consistent with the ProgCode culture of autonomy, the option always should be revocable by the Team Lead.

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