Sakai Community Roadmap

Here is a possible list of discussion items for the Sakai Community Roadmap BOF:

What is a Community Roadmap?

• is there an elephant in the room: does our community have a "grand vision"? (If not, do we even need one?)
• does our community want to know where we are going?

• how does a CR differ from what we already have?
• how does it fit in functionally or process-wise with what we already have?
• what are possible timelines for our Roadmaps, relative to our software releases?
• on finding the right level of granularity – goals / tasks, and prioritizing them

How Do We Get One? ("Asking the People What They Think")

• who are the "people"
  • users – students, faculty, collaborative researchers
  • check/cheque-writers
  • programmers
  • other volunteer groups (UI, library, docs, QA, etc)
  • Foundation staff (including, but not limited to, the ED)

• possible processes to determine priorities
  • direct surveys of known stakeholders (e.g. partners; programmers; foundation staff)

• possible processes to determine goals, tasks, and timelines
  • how can we provide volunteers a way to state what they expect to achieve that allows for different levels of uncertainty (see below)?
  • how does this fit in with the functional requirements process?

• how to achieve feedback loops that make the process relevant

• how do we build in appropriate uncertainty?
  • ask information providers to provide levels of confidence?

Possible Roadmap Sections

• vision statement
• background info
• priority/goal/task sections
  • community-wide high priority work
    • current best examples: "user pleasure", Samigo and OSP
  • architectural goals
    • could include: MySQL, java, hibernate, spring, MSSQL, oracle, RSF/JSF etc.
  • documentation goals
    • could include: Sakai help app, confluence, jira, installation guide
  • QA goals
  • infrastructure goals
    • could include: qa servers, sakaiproject.org software and server, collab software and server, confluence and jira software and servers, svn and related software and server(s)
  • tool-specific goals
    • links to the existing functional requirements process?
  • advocacy / marketing goals
  • community process goals
  • other?

What Are Realistic Goals for This Group

• building on successes
• Roadmap v1.0 sections and timeline