2010-1-13 Product Council Meeting

6pm GMT / 1pm EST

Phone number: 1 (812)856-7060
Internet: 156.56.240.9
Room code: 348#
Password: 72524#

1. High-level survey of community efforts going toward S3
2. Discussion of PC's role along road toward a S3 release

I. Efforts to inform S3

II. Efforts to deliver S3

III. Efforts that assume S3

Overview of S3 efforts:

Three broad spheres of activity: a) those that are trying to inform functionality and design, b) those that are trying to deliver S3, c) those that expect to make use of S3.
That last one is a dangerous place to be. There's a lot of work remaining to get to square one with a deployable product, it's still evolving, and if community energy too quickly turns to particular projects riding on top of S3 this may delay the point at which we'd have an S3 at all.
The "Deliver S3" effort is happening on three main levels:
1. a UX Design effort led by a consultant (Sam) and sponsored by Cambridge, GT, CSU, and HEC Montreal as well as the Foundation. UCB has also been contributing staff time.
2. UI development, which is using the sakai-ux list for its communication. Oszkar is leading the work here.
3. Back-end development - the K2 work led by Ian.
The "Deliver S3" work is moving toward a March milestone, but has been struggling over some of the very issues that the product development process was meant to help: a managed project
Clay's energy has been split between urgency of delivering 1st milestone and finding the right community-based long term approach.
- the voice that our functional communities have in product development
- trying to draw more bodies into "deliver S3" area
- supporting and facilitating UX design project

Issues for PC: (granted that a full, new generation of product is a singular problem)

How can the PC help?
- a community roadmap toward a first S3 release
- facilitate functional visioning? Commision manifestos to steer by?
- urge a particular model for project management? (traditional project management has not worked well for distributed coordination. Tried for K2 and failed.)
- New areas for community standards (or new levels of standard)
  - client-side development, accessibility, good design
  - technology choices
There's a formal aspect to this, too. S3 is not yet incubated. Right now K2 and Groups in incubation, which presents a false picture. Groups work has been folded into the main effort, and although we might get to the point where we have independent kernel releases it seems more important now to have K2's development led strongly by the UX work.

Review of some of NYU's projects:

If project management is such a big issue, should the PC be urging a particular solution to that?
The PC has a role in stewarding projects toward reliable results for a release, and urging a credible project plan to get there. * * If an incubated effort has project management identified as a risk, we can try to help the team work out a solution to that. It wouldn't mean that we mandate a particular model.
Could be a Kuali-like sprint to get firm organization and commitments, it could be a gifted coordinator of loosely distributed teams, or somewhere in between depending on the situation. There may be a variety of tactical responses.
Still need to be self-aware about our role and purview, and not overstep.
articulating risks and opportunities good for us, and getting input is something we should do.