2022-03-31 Product Council Meeting notes
Date
Attendees
Alexis Manheim, Anya, Brooks Travis, Charlotte Whitt, dracine, Felix Hemme, Gang Zhou, Hkaplanian, Ian Walls, Jana Freytag, Jacquie Samples, Jesse Koennecke, John Ballestro, julie.bickle, Karen Newbery, Kirstin Kemner-Heek, Kristin Martin, Marie Widigson, Martina Schildt, Maura Byrne, Mike Gorrell, Owen Stephens, Paul Moeller, Peter Murray, Sharon Wiles-Young, Simeon Warner, Thomas Trutt, twliu, Zak Burke
Recording
Discussion items
| Time | Item | Who | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5 min | Announcements New FOLIO members:
Product Council election updates | Kristin Martin | Elections are to occur in April. Current members are letting. WOLFcon Pacific Conference—all are welcome to attend. |
| 60 min | Priorities for FOLIO Development | Martina Schildt | Tasked by Product Council to create a new process for prioritizing the development of new features. Workflow overview: institutions add requests as Jira issues. Product Owners review to close if duplicate and go back to the requester for new information. Product Owners can decide to bypass the SIGs if needed. SIGs prioritize what they want to work on based on their own criteria. SIG (or working group) adds user stories and further information. The SIG votes on ranking. The Product Owner can adjust rankings if needed. The Product Owner would send it to the institutions for ranking (or bypass to go directly to developers if warranted). Institutions would vote on features using a tool outside of Jira (yet to be determined). PO, SIG, and Institutional rankings would be combined into a final ranking to determine which release will include the feature. The SIG has a voice in voting in addition to institutional ranking. So far we have avoided having institutions put information directly into Jira; institutions typically go to Product Owners now. Clarification that this process "ranks" not "votes" on feature development. Ranking doesn't necessarily mean that a development team is available to take on feature development. Having the ranked list of features helps when new development resources come to the project to say where development teams would be useful. This flow chart process takes some of the burdens off Product Owners and put them on SIGs to do some of the pre-development work. The task group can take this information back and develop a prioritization process for development teams. Historically, the implementer's group has also provided rankings and at times have overridden rankings in Jira. The Implementers Group needs to be added as a point of consideration as well. Jira would have PO and SIG rankings; institutional ranking handled outside Jira, and the final ranking put into Jira. Having POs or SIGs tie feature development to a particular release (instead of a rank order) is not as helpful as the ranked prioritization. Bug-handling may bypass this process or could be added to this process. The bypass path offers discretion for product owners when needed and appropriate. The voting process hasn't been determined and would be discussed at a future meeting. A joint PO/SIG-Convener meeting would work through the details and recorded for later viewing. Forcing an institution to pay to have a voice in institutional rankings can be harmful to the project. If the dues paid to FOLIO are funding specific developers, then the priorities of dues-paying members are useful for determining what FOLIO-funded developers are doing. Institutions active in the SIGs are already shaping the nature of features, and institutions are encouraged to take up responsibility for features that are important to them and gather input and resources from others to get the development to completion. Next steps: the group is seeking additional feedback (including comments on the slides). The task group will prepare an additional presentation on tools and a refinement of the process. Feedback is due in three weeks, with the group coming back to Product Council a week after. |
| 10 min | SIG liaison needed for Metadata Management | Martina Schildt | MM SIG will ask if there is someone who can attend PC meetings. |
| 10 min | Future topics | all | The weeks of April 14 and 21 (the weeks around Easter) are extended holidays for some, so those PC meetings are canceled. We will move the SIG update meeting to April 7. SIG Convener Update document for that meeting on April 7.) For a future meeting, making plans for WOLFcon. The next FOLIO WOLFcon planning meeting is Friday, April 27th. |
Meeting Chat record
00:03:06 Peter Murray: Same here—spring break, but without the piano practice. 00:03:30 Dracine Hodges: He's sounding good. 00:07:10 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): http://wolfcon-ap.library.sh.cn/conf30/en 00:14:50 Charlotte Whitt: Amazing overview. Super cool Thomas (y) 00:15:05 Julie Bickle (LMU): +1 00:15:07 Dracine Hodges: +1 I like this visualization. 00:15:41 Gang Zhou: The libraries vote in the SIG , isn’t it? 00:16:33 Jana Freytag: In the past we had a special voting process for institutional voting (eg Kiwi pointing) 00:16:33 Martina Schildt: The libraries vote as institutions via a separate tool. In addition, the SIG has a rank as well. 00:17:11 Jana Freytag: Thank you Thomas! 00:17:36 Gang Zhou: Thanksï¼You may need a view that allows a library to see all features planned to be added 00:17:47 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): Will you be sharing more? Would love to have a link to that visualization to review further 00:18:02 Gang Zhou: OK 00:18:06 Jana Freytag: the link is in the PC Notess 00:18:19 Charlotte Whitt: And have the overview published on Wiki 00:18:35 Brooks Travis: Is getting it out of Jira a devops requirement, or is the goal to find a more user-friendly tool for voting? 00:19:19 Thomas Trutt: the last part a more user friendly interface for voting. 00:19:22 Brooks Travis: I’m not sure AirTable or CBASE really fits the latter bill. 00:20:54 Brooks Travis: I wouldn’t want to discourage folks from getting involved at the Jira level. It’s a key part of identifying potential POs 00:21:44 Brooks Travis: +1 Julie 00:22:55 Gang Zhou: If PO/SIG can list some features to be developed and summarize them into a function list, it may be more intuitive for the library. Jira is still needed to understand and discuss a specific feature. 00:23:06 Anya: +Julie and harry 00:24:01 Harry: +1 to Julie 00:24:25 Kirstin Kemner-Heek: But aren't the PO's the first to work on new features? And can already comment / rank accordingly? 00:24:40 Simeon Warner (he/him): I agree with Julie that the lingering tie of R1, R2 terminology with a notion of releases is not helpful. I think some notion of buckets for ranking is still essential though 00:26:20 Dracine Hodges: "Ranking" seems to miss the point too. Things are ranked regularly but that has not helped increase urgency/outcomes because of limited development resources. 00:26:44 Julie Bickle (LMU): +1 Dracine 00:26:45 Dracine Hodges: +1 Ian Wall 00:26:56 Gang Zhou: +1 Ian 00:27:21 Julie Bickle (LMU): So Maybe decouple: Important for the Project vs. this is the order of the Backlog for each indiv Team? 00:29:19 Julie Bickle (LMU): I like that Name "List of recommendations from community" - so if, for whatever reason, it can't be worked on soon, another Group may decide to take Things into their own Hands. 00:29:45 Kirstin Kemner-Heek: That's what I wanted to add as well Julie :-) 00:29:56 Martina Schildt: +1 00:29:58 Julie Bickle (LMU): Great minds meet 😠00:30:02 Dracine Hodges: +1 00:31:14 Gang Zhou: +1 Julie 00:32:16 Kirstin Kemner-Heek: +1 Jana! SIG's are essential and have overview as well. 00:32:22 Julie Bickle (LMU): +1 Jana 00:32:29 Maura Byrne: +1 00:32:31 Charlotte Whitt: + 1 Jana 00:32:32 Sharon Wiles-Young (Lehigh): +1 jana 00:33:23 Zak Burke: Apologies; I need to drop for another meeting. Update from the TC this week: 00:33:32 Jacquie Samples -- Duke: ranking on epics might also prevent many from voting on work-arounds rather than the actual feature, or develop the feature differently. 00:33:37 Anya: Maybe I missed it, but how will this ranking or so’s be involved in prioritizing bugs and items that come in through the support sig 00:34:19 Zak Burke: Slow and steady progress from subgroups; no major new business. We discussed some WOLFCon topics. 00:34:26 Thomas Trutt: Bugs where kept out, as they usually need to be addressed right way 00:34:51 Brooks Travis: Could SIG ranking replace Institutional rankings in Jira? 00:34:56 Anya: Thanks Thomas - but some bugs are - undefined specs 00:35:46 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): I think there is a PO ranking in the model 00:36:07 Martina Schildt: Yes, PO rank, SIG rank and one total of institutional rank 00:36:20 Thomas Trutt: there is; PO, SIG and Community rankings 00:37:41 Jacquie Samples -- Duke: We had the idea of weighted rankings depending on the group/person doing the ranking. So the implementers would have a different weight than unimplemented instituitions 00:38:14 Kirstin Kemner-Heek: But shouldn't implementers be part of the SIG's? Every Institution is welcome in the SIG's to address their issues and worries. 00:38:27 Thomas Trutt: @anya, we may need to discuss it more but if a feature comes out of a bug it i think it would go through this process.. but there are bypasses that allow a po to bypass the sigs and community as a whole. 00:39:11 Jana Freytag: These Questions are raised on slide 11 in the presentation. 00:39:39 Harry: +1 Owen 00:39:46 Jacquie Samples -- Duke: Yes, Kristen, they should be, but SIG discussions primarily seem to be on new features, not fixing those, necessarily. 00:39:54 Kirstin Kemner-Heek: +1 Owen 00:40:26 Kirstin Kemner-Heek: To Jacquie: but with FOLIO maturing, that might be a way to switch focus. 00:40:30 Dracine Hodges: Technically, since developer teams are directed by their managing funders any of these inputs is overridden by that. SIGs seems a good place for mediation. 00:40:44 Kirstin Kemner-Heek: +1 Dracine 00:40:47 Harry: +1 Kristin 00:44:30 Ian Walls: perhaps instead of voting/ranking with integers in some system, institutions/individuals/vendors put money towards specific things getting fixed. Then, once enough money is raised to afford the time to do the fix, it gets done 00:47:44 Mike Gorrell: +1 to Harry 00:47:58 Simeon Warner (he/him): Agreed 00:48:00 Julie Bickle (LMU): +1 Harry 00:48:41 Gang Zhou: +1 to Harry 00:52:53 Harry: +1 Julie 00:53:05 Dracine Hodges: That's helpful context, Julie. 00:54:19 Sharon Wiles-Young (Lehigh): Sorry I have to run to another meeting. Thanks for this discussion 00:57:02 Brooks Travis: Providing a formal directed funding mechanism via the SMLLC would probably help institutions contribute directly to dev. 00:57:29 Dracine Hodges: I understand the tension of being an open community. However, how do we affirm the value and investment of those who are here, contributing a tremendous amount of effort but are not seeing fruits of that labor? Perhaps the SMLLC is one option. 00:58:01 Simeon Warner (he/him): At present most dev effort comes from hosting vendors and so is essentially funded through a (hidden) “hosting tax†rather the direct contributions 00:59:01 Harry: +1 Simeon 00:59:57 Ian Walls: we vendors are going to take care of our customers. if something is a P1 for them, we're going to put effort towards resolving it, even if it's only a P3 for the community in aggregate 01:00:08 Dracine Hodges: Some of us doing both contributing directly and paying the hosting tax. 01:01:36 Simeon Warner (he/him): Yes, Cornell too. 01:01:53 Jacquie Samples -- Duke: Active members are not always seeing what we have articulated as needs being developed, sorry to disagree with you Harry. 01:02:31 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): I'm not sure that we can actually guarantee anything, but we can try to influence, right? 01:02:47 Kirstin Kemner-Heek: +1 Kristin 01:02:48 Jacquie Samples -- Duke: So, true, Kristin. 01:02:54 Dracine Hodges: +1 Kristin 01:03:07 Gang Zhou: +1 Kristin 01:03:19 Harry: +1 Kristin 01:04:13 Jana Freytag: Slides:https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1468jIUW1eQZr1T9fGX2cw_HvgpWKIv9-/edit#slide=id.g120572dd5f3_0_15 01:04:23 Brooks Travis: Periodic reminder that we are in need of PO resources. It’s a great opportunity to influence the development prioritization process. 😃 01:05:09 Anya: +100 Brooks 01:05:22 Jana Freytag: Thomas' flow Chart: https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1HguNlbWI8iLc2Etp0ufjvDQAcDLA7E-P 01:06:04 Ian Walls: but, in order to actually get anything to happen, a PO needs a dev team to back them 01:07:11 Jesse Koennecke (he/him): Rebrand: Wonderfully long vacation time. 01:07:24 Jana Freytag: ðŸ‘😌 01:08:32 Jacquie Samples -- Duke: Thanks everyone! 01:08:37 Thomas Trutt: Thanks everyone.. 01:08:46 Dracine Hodges: Thanks to the proposal team. 01:09:04 Thomas Trutt: im going to drop off.. Thank you everyone. 01:09:16 Kristin Martin (UChicago she/her): Thank you again Tom! 01:11:36 Dracine Hodges: I miss both groups! Wish I could help, but current responsibilities prohibit that. 01:11:57 Charlotte Whitt: And we miss you Dracine :-) 01:12:19 Dracine Hodges: Thanks, Charlotte. :) 01:14:42 Anya: Radical idea - do we need to meet in April ? 01:16:55 Owen Stephens: I feel like that just going to the supermarket! Never mind a transatlantic flight 🙂 01:16:58 Mike Gorrell: Our channel: #folio-wolfcon-planning-group 01:17:15 Julie Bickle (LMU): lol Jesse 01:18:07 Mike Gorrell: Define “need†;-) 01:18:48 Dracine Hodges: Two instead of four seems a good compromise. 01:19:18 Anya: ;)