2010-04-21 Product Council Meeting

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Last updated: Apr 21, 2010 by Former user (Deleted)Version comment
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8 pm GMT + 2 / 7pm BST / 2pm EDT

Phone number: 1 (812)856-7060
Internet: 156.56.240.9
Room code: 22350#
Password: 72524#

Agenda

  1. Review drafts of Council role clarifying FAQs (pasted below). Nate has decided to organize this draft of our refinement/clarification of the Sakai Product Council (SPC) role as a series of interrelated FAQs that should ultimately live on the SPC FAQ wiki page (http://wiki.sakaiproject.org/display/MGT/Product+Council+FAQ). Through creating these FAQs, we may also end up proposing refinements/clarifications to the more formal/general SPC wiki pages. Note that Nate has not completed drafts of all necessary FAQs, but has at least indicated some he thinks we need to provide.
  2. Sakai 3 graduation to Product Development
    • clarifying what it would need to demonstrate
  3. 2.8 planning
    • Inclusion and deprecation proposals by the end of the Denver conference
    • Going into a release cycle knowing what resource is committed to it

Last meeting's etherpad

This meeting's etherpad

Attendees

S3 Product Development Proposal

  1. Sakai 3 will graduate incubation when it can demonstrate:
    • A development roadmap and project plan - leading to a production-hardened, tested and documented community 3.0 release within a specific timeframe
    • Clearly documented functional requirements
    • Documented analysis of resources needed to deliver on this plan, and recruited commitments to supply these resources
    • Material commitment to the project plan from at least 5 institutions
    • Documented design, development, and testing processes that incorporate community input as well as the requirements of contributing institutions
    • A formal project management that includes:
      1. a steering committee populated by reps of contributing institutions
      2. direct reporting of committed staff to central project management for the duration

Draft SPC FAQs

FAQ: What does the Sakai Product Council do?

The Council's role is defined formally in our general wiki page (http://wiki.sakaiproject.org/display/MGT/Sakai+Product+Council), excerpted below:

<snip>
The Sakai Product Council will act on behalf of the entire Sakai community to ensure the exceptional quality and cohesiveness of Sakai product releases in their support of varied teaching, research and collaboration needs. It does this formally by determining those projects which will go into a release, and informally by advising projects as they progress from R&D to production-ready maturity. The Product Council will undertake its work:

  • by employing the expertise of its members
  • through direct consultation with experts in the community
  • with reference to best practices for technology, pedagogy and standards
  • by establishing and communicating clear and objective criteria
  • with a transparent process that allows review and comment from the community
    </snip>

More specifically, the Council stewards the lifecycle of Sakai projects as they move through the various stages of Sakai's development process (http://wiki.sakaiproject.org/display/MGT/2009+Sakai+Development+Process), from incubation to end-of-life, in relation to Sakai's overall roadmap as a coherent product.

In the research & development and incubation phases, the Council acts primarily as an advisory body, available to projects that seek guidance on their progress through the product development lifecycle. In this advisory role, the Council may foster the dissemination and clarification of community standards and practices. In these phases, interaction with the Council is typically initiated by specific project teams.

For the product development, maintenance, and end-of-life phases, the Council reviews projects seeking to change to these statuses and projects identified as nearing end-of-life to ensure they have met community standards and practices appropriate to a new status. In each case, the Council will work iteratively with project teams and appropriate community bodies until a status change can be made, or a request for change of status withdrawn. Specific project teams typically initiate requests to the Council for changes in status to the product development and/or maintenance phases. Any community member or body may initiate requests to the Council for a change in status to the end-of-life phase, but should typically first propose and discuss end-of-life with the wider community.

The Council operates not as an dictatorial authority, but as a body that crystalizes the questions the community would ask to maintain product coherence. For innovation: how has your project addressed specific community standards and practices to meet its stage in the development process? For end-of-life: is your project still addressing those specific community standards and practices that signal viable participation in Sakai as a coherent, live product?

FAQ: Who owns the Sakai product roadmap?

Sakai's roadmap is owned by the Foundation Product Manager, who stewards its development via broad community collaboration. The Product Manager treats the roadmap like a formal Sakai development project and guides versions of it through the product development lifecycle in collaboration with the Sakai Product Council.

FAQ: What is the relationship between the Sakai Product Council and other community bodies/teams, such as the QA team, release team, and maintenance team?

TBD

FAQ: What are the differences between how the Sakai Product Council works with Sakai 2.x versus Sakai 3.x?

TBD

Next Steps