2025-03-05 RFC Retrospective

2025-03-05 RFC Retrospective

Date

Mar 5, 2025

Attendees 

  • @Craig McNally

  • @Jenn Colt

Discussion items

Time

Item

Who

Notes

Time

Item

Who

Notes

1 min

Scribe

All

@Jakub Skoczen is next, followed by @Jenn Colt.

Reminder:  Please copy/paste the Zoom chat into the notes.  If you miss it, this is saved along with the meeting recording, but having it here has benefits.

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RFC Retrospective

All

https://easyretro.io/publicboard/dY8fCRqguiSDP3wtvSLhNzlULdM2/dae10f92-7cf9-48a0-ab4a-116b1758899b

What could we have done differently?

  • Tri-council group

    • started too early maybe

    • scope focused on app formalization and that was seemed too narrow?

    • trying not to be technical

    • focus on app form and the work not being used

  • Once all of Eureka was the topic and not just app formalization things changed

  • Granting blessing to things already done

  • As soon as it was clear Eureka was going into prod, we should have asked what the alternative was and realized there weren't any

  • After a certain point, given the community structure, we spent a lot of time making a decision that wasn't a decision, should have focused on how to get there

  • Community need to be open to the conversation

  • Hard to know what is going to happen at the beginning

  • Community had questions so it was reasonable to try

  • Not able to get needed answers on app form and platform form further down the road - releases, bugfest, etc. Would have liked a way to focus on them

  • seems like it's often too early and also often too late!

  • not too early - group determined its own scope, that was in our name!

    • spun wheels maybe because of make up of the group? hard to get everyone on the same page

    • lots of head scratching conversations

    • from a product PoV what is the ideal composition?

    • two initiatives to ask community for ideal, asked for input

      • couldn't do that

      • in parallel took baby steps toward app formalization

    • what are we marching toward without product input on app formalization

  • Conceptual domain modeling is hard in the FOLIO community

    • Leaves the technical driving things

  • When there's a big change with no alternatives then could be more prudent acknowledging where we are at

  • Shouldn't have had a Eureka RFC

  • We never got into questioning Eureka enough to understand the tradeoffs, etc so we can't really make a statement about Eureka

  • When we get large change proposals, if something is already a certain amount along so there would be a negative impact to saying no, we shouldn't do the RFC at all

  • TC's responsibility to 'set general technical direction'

  • We can add value. How can we do this? When things are already crystalized

  • What did we get out of this process for this time around? What did we get? What value did we add?

  • Maybe RFCs aren't really the right thing. Feedback vs approval on changes.

  • RFC process heavy, not helping when rapid change is needed, doesn't help community move faster

  • Something more lightweight

  • Hard to find time to generate a big RFC

  • There was overlap with pre-existing needs in the project- permissions, applications, authentication

  • Our RFC process is different from the IEEE process

  • People in the solution architect role should be helped by the process

  • Helpful to know what is being on worked so community can know when we should be working on something

  • In this case how fast TC was working wouldn't have mattered, competing concerns with building the thing and getting the RFC done

  • Even before the RFC existed it was too late for a goal of approval

  • Can make current process more efficient or reframe it to do a different job, to figure out what valuable input the TC has

  • Time to market issue for developers/hosting companies.  If decisions made during that affect others building, we have a responsibility  to make sure these are workable for the whole community

  • No upcoming RFC to get feedback on most recent set of changes

  • RFCs driven  by customer needs and schedules, need to be clear on what we are trying to accomplish

  • How do we add value while still moving quick enough.  Not helpful to make a decision after a decision has already been made

  • Timeliness is also an issue in the product space

  • Understanding  the reach of a proposed change

  • Community awareness vs gatekeeping

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Zoom Chat