Wikimedia Technology/Goals/2017-18 Q2/Process

Overview

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Traditionally, teams have set quarterly goals. Starting this quarter, the goals will be tracked per program. Each program owner is responsible for working with team leads (or whoever else) to gain agreement on the quarterly goals for their program. Any dependencies should be aware of and agree to their responsibilities.

The goals will incrementally become more and more firm, passing through "rough draft", "final draft", "approved by CTO", and then "final" stages.

Timeline

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Dates Who Activity Quarterly planning pages (on mediawiki.org) Check-in Deck (in Google Office) Deadline
mid-Aug – Aug 28 Kevin Prepare the quarterly planning wiki pages Tech Q2 goals page ready for content Aug 28   Done
late-Aug Kevin Publish the process and timeline (this page) Sept 1   Done
Aug 29 – Sept 11 Owners Program owners populate the wiki page Populated with rough draft Q2 goals Sept 11   Done
Sept 1 - 11 Kevin Create program-centric check-in deck, populated with with Q1 goals Populated with Q1 goals Sept 11   Done
Sept 11 – 18 Owners Review draft Q2 plans, confirm dependencies (both within Technology and with other departments) Populated with final draft Q2 goals Sept 18   Done
Sept 20-22 Victoria, Owners Meetings with CTO to approve proposed goals   Done
Sept 18 – Oct 2 Owners Program owners populate Q2 portion of checkin deck Populated with Q2 goals Oct 2   Done
Oct 2 Q2 starts. New goals in effect
Oct 2 - 5 Owners Program owners determine and document Q1 results Populated with Q1 results Oct 5   Done
Oct 10 Kevin Share draft check-in deck Link sent to C-levels Oct 10 (according to office wiki)   Done
Oct 16 Everyone Check-in meetings Presented   Done
Oct 17 - 24 Owners Update wiki planning page to reflect any changes made after the final draft was posted Updated to reflect "final" Q2 goals Oct 24
Oct 24 Joel Publish to meta Published on meta, along with notes from the meetings Oct 24
Oct 24 - Nov 1 Kevin/Joel Conduct an asynchronous retrospective of this planning process, and write up results Nov 1

See also: https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Quarterly_check-ins

Guidance for goal-setting

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As you plan your goals, consider:

  • This quarter (October-December) will generally be less productive for most teams, because of fundraising campaigns, and holidays. Each is likely to slow or block deployments, and holidays will affect not only your own team, but teams and individuals that you depend on. Don't build a plan that relies on deploying new features in December.
    • Planned no (non-emergency) deployment weeks: Week of Nov 20th (Thanksgiving), December 18th and 25th (End of year holidays).
  • Each goal should tie to an annual plan outcome and one or more of its objectives (or milestones). In rare cases, the work on a goal might serve multiple outcomes, so that can be handled on a case-by-case basis.
  • By the end of Q2, we will be halfway through the fiscal year. Look at all the annual plan objectives for your program, and consider how well you are positioned to complete all the goals.
  • Speaking of the annual plan, look ahead to work that will happen in Q3, and make sure any preparatory work is planned, to avoid bottlenecks and blockers later.
  • Talk to your dependencies early and often! Don't assume they know what you are expecting of them. When appropriate, account for reviews by Security, Performance, Legal, etc.
  • Team leads need to balance all the demands on their team's time. In addition to various program goals, the team may have its own internal work, as well as unexpected emergencies.

Presentation slots

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Sustaining/Foundational

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Sustaining

  • TP1 Availability, Performance & Maintenance (R, C, K)
  • TP3 Addressing Technical Debt (R, C, K)
  • TP8 Multi-datacenter Support (R, C)

Foundational

  • TP2 Mediawiki Refresh (C, R, K)
  • TP6 Streamlined Service Delivery (C)
  • PP1 Discoverability (C)
  • X-SPDM Security, Privacy & Data Management (C)
  • X-SDC Structured Data on Commons (C, K)

Community/Tech Community

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Community

  • TP5 Scoring Platform (ORES) (R, C, K)
  • TP9 Growing Wikipedia Across Languages via Recommendations (R, C, K)
  • TP7 Smart Tools for Better Data (C, R)
  • TP11 Citations/Verifiability (K, C)
  • TP12 Growing Contributor Diversity (R, C, K)
  • X-CH Community Health/Anti-harassment (R, C)

Tech Community

  • TP4 Technical Community Building (C, R)
  • TP10 Public Cloud Services & Support (K, C)