Cross Council Meeting 3:30–5pm, Thursday 2022-09-01
Introductions
Questions from CC: If you had $50k, what would you spend it on?
Jesse (PC) - Back end non-functional requirements, TC has articulated these and they never get enough attention
Kristin (PC) - Have prioritized list, could work to find some PO effort
Tod Olson - Thinking about pain points. Imagine thinking of revisions to module, thinking carefully about module boundaries and thinking about more formal definitions of module. Also proposal for cross-app data sync so would like pilot for that
Mike (CC) - Think of both the near term and the long term perspective. Imagine what could we do with 50k or 100k per year if, say , we aren't paying for development. Notes that CC talked about possible coordination effort, or documentation effort.
Paula (CC) - What would look beneficial to deans and directors who authorize the funding?
Jesse (PC) - Could be used as a matching fund, incentivize other spending
Tod - Think of additional PO resources as that isn't something easily sold to funding agencies. Very short on POs and some of those are overstressed
Kirsten - Ties to PC discussion about getting more effort to support the identified priorities from SMEs. Next step requires PO skills
Brooks - Suggests developing a true PO onboarding curriculum.
Owen Stephens - $50k is not enough on its own, you'd have to spend it in a way that would bring more money into a project. Need effort to get through the knowledge that you want to do something, to describing the need properly -- a key step before the PO and team need to actually implement
Mark Veksler - What are the biggest threats to the community as a project? If we prioritize them, which is first? Is it developing functionality or something else?
Annika - Notes CC discussion of what is the coordination force of someone to help onboarding other small efforts. An effort multiplier
Ian Walls - Would get dev environment up and going
Tod - 4 ideas: 1) platform minimal work, 2) packaging of apps in useful way - these would make FOLIO a more approachable platform, ...
Mark V - Where do we want FOLIO to be in 5 years from now?
Simeon - Note differences of focus and how focus changes with cycle of prep to go live and go live
Tom - What if we used $50k to have a 3 day meeting for all three councils and come up with a vision? We don't want to spend 5 years coming up with a vision that is then out of date
What should CC be doing to support the community that it isn't yet?
Jeremy (TC) - Address uncertainty in community council roles and the authority of the councils, this comes up as an uncertainty
Kat (CC) - Second this and think it is natural to reflect on a new governance structure. Have heard this week about where is the authority and where are the levers?
Jeremy (TC) - E.g. what authority does TC have in enforcing decisions. Think that some representation is intended to (+1 from Brooks)
Kirsten Martin (PC) - New governance model has left uncertainty and some things taken over by the CC. Have been told that some things are out of scope. Question of how PC can get from needs, to a business case, to funding. Need to review where decisions are made and if there isn't clear authority then where does it lie?
Jenn - New to TC and this question of authority resonates. It is hard to drop into the middle of a council conversation and try to understand where authority is. Have suggested reviewing charter. Folks investing resources should understand
Alexis (PC) - We are a year into the governance model, is there a plan to step back and review how things are going? We should think about how our job is going and then everyone might feel
Mike - Notes plan for retrospective tomorrow
Jesse (PC) - Discussion that got a little hung up on "product", "platform" and "project". Note clear whether these terms have been used carefully
Tod - parallels between PC and TC. For PC there is charge to be in charge of FOLIO as product with roadmap. Question about how PC can provide that guidance. At TC there are ways to make architectural decisions but unclear how to make that real. What if development happens that doesn't follow the architecture
Boaz - Notes governance document was intentional about use of product and projects. A process was built into the governance doc that gives CC authority to do that in consultation with community. This is quite soon after for making that change
Annike - From outside councils see them as quite well set up for different problems but notes overlapping problems. Think that sessions like this are perhaps and important ongoing idea
Jeremy - Notes mention online that is quite soon after the new approach to governance. Agree with need to revisit but would be hesitant to make major changes now, should perhaps refine and tweak first
Brooks Travis (chat) - Definitely. We need holistic, high production value onboarding resources.
Jenn Colt (chat) - Assessment before big change for sure
Tom - Note Stanford relatively new, but have been on CC since it formed. Hard to know how the project really operates, coming to the conclusion that nobody really knows all of it. It is a big and complex projects. Had a discussion about resourcing in CC but then question at end if whether CC really knows enough to decided. Brooks mentioned PO training, should we have CC council training? Do folks know enough?
Julie Bickle - Authority, ownership, guidance. E.g. in TC how do we have the authority to implement the decision? Note authority is clearer with money. But for other things "just go do it, make it real". But then does council have energy or resources to do that? In this sense the councils may not have the power to make it real. Still value in the councils to have the discussions. Third part of where the value can be is the idea of guidance, might be to do with transparency our and sharing information
Ian Walls - There is a challenge in the community with handing off to people with authority and not enough "I am going to do this". With authority we are all equal participants with own energy. Hopefully agree direction first. Think councils have control of legal and money raised, but limited beyond that.
Mike - Tom mentioned not enough people know how everything works, we should work on that and get on the same page with. E.g. product roadmap - does that actually happen? That takes effort to track
Brooks - We get paralyzed by the desire for consensus on issues where we're probably not going to get it. Feel that councils are sometimes reluctant to make forward movement, feel that authority baked into model that is not being exercised
Paula - Who has tried to use and exert authority?
Kirstin - Thinks PC has tried to build a roadmap and exercise some authority to get things done. Felt that when tried to understand capacity planning then was told that don't have authority to get things done. Would like to understand what authority PC has and how that can be best used. Good to have cross council meetings. Feel that CC said work from Scope criteria group was not welcome
Jeremy - Had understanding that PC decides what gets built and TC decides how things get built.
Mike - Feel that CC has not hesitated to make decisions when they have felt like they needed to be made. Feels like CC is OK with its charge
Jenn - Having this conversation without talking about how things are funded seems very hard. How do people not allocating funds have authority?
Jesse - Thinks that roadmap without funding or resourcing can't be effective.
Jeremy - One area where TC can exert authority is defining whether a module is fit for release. Feels that TC can express criteria and put pressure
Tod - Notes addition of modules increases complexity of release process, bug fest, etc.. There should be some check on cost-benefit (PC?) as well as technical issues. Cross council group came together with flow chart to assess -- PC for feature review, TC for technical review. That was what was brought to CC
Tod - Back to authority: TC can usually make decisions by consensus and have vote in rare cases that doesn't happen. TC flounders when it isn't clear what part of the decision
Annika - Feel that some problems get reduced scope from work in other councils, but then something is missed because only the councils together can decide on something.
Mark V - Feel like focus is wrong. But authority comes with funding. Look at two levels: Looks at strategic elements and then look at how the funding matches. Can CC tell the PC what that budget it
Jesse - Getting back to the roadmap, there is work to steer or influence work that is outside of direct authority. Need to think about what in roadmap is being done by other means and what are the gaps.
Kristen - Think that some angst of PC is not shared elsewhere. But thinks that they are missing a picture of all of FOLIO development. If could understand gaps they don't have enough information to be effective
Harry - So why don't we have the discussion?
Kristen - Feel that don't know enough about what is going on
Mark V - Features have release dates in Jira
Kirsten - Need a bit more detail than is available on Jira, can't quite tell from the issue description
Jeremy - Would like to see better how decisions are shared and recorded. E.g. Architectural Decision Records from TC would be a good step. That would allow better hand-off of authority from one council to another. Should be explicit responsibilities and decisions.
Annika - Could have cross council membership - one from each council sits in other. Folks note that this happens in an ad hoc fashion
Julie - Notes also meeting minutes
Ian - Think perhaps about groups making "agreements" rather than "decisions"
Mark V - Also the question of why - why is something needed? Need to be able to convince others to allocate resources.
Boaz - Think need a retreat with PC to figure some of this out. Consensus building is about understanding, need more face time to work it out.
Tom - "Let's go to the ATM", the CC, doesn't really work as model. His experience with OSS projects is that they are not usually centrally funded. Need to find common interests and common aims. Hear emphasis on decisions and not focus on coordination. Notes huge activity and China and haven't fully tapped that vein.