Wikimedia Technology/Goals/2017-18 Q2/Process
Overview
[edit]Traditionally, teams have set quarterly goals. Starting this quarter, the goals will be tracked per program. Each program owner is responsible for working with team leads (or whoever else) to gain agreement on the quarterly goals for their program. Any dependencies should be aware of and agree to their responsibilities.
The goals will incrementally become more and more firm, passing through "rough draft", "final draft", "approved by CTO", and then "final" stages.
Timeline
[edit]| Dates | Who | Activity | Quarterly planning pages (on mediawiki.org) | Check-in Deck (in Google Office) | Deadline |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| mid-Aug – Aug 28 | Kevin | Prepare the quarterly planning wiki pages | Tech Q2 goals page ready for content | Aug 28  Done
| |
| late-Aug | Kevin | Publish the process and timeline (this page) | Sept 1 Done
| ||
| Aug 29 – Sept 11 | Owners | Program owners populate the wiki page | Populated with rough draft Q2 goals | Sept 11 Done
| |
| Sept 1 - 11 | Kevin | Create program-centric check-in deck, populated with with Q1 goals | Populated with Q1 goals | Sept 11 Done
| |
| Sept 11 – 18 | Owners | Review draft Q2 plans, confirm dependencies (both within Technology and with other departments) | Populated with final draft Q2 goals | Sept 18 Done
| |
| Sept 20-22 | Victoria, Owners | Meetings with CTO to approve proposed goals | Done
| ||
| Sept 18 – Oct 2 | Owners | Program owners populate Q2 portion of checkin deck | Populated with Q2 goals | Oct 2 Done
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| Oct 2 | Q2 starts. New goals in effect | ||||
| Oct 2 - 5 | Owners | Program owners determine and document Q1 results | Populated with Q1 results | Oct 5 Done
| |
| Oct 10 | Kevin | Share draft check-in deck | Link sent to C-levels | Oct 10 (according to office wiki) Done
| |
| Oct 16 | Everyone | Check-in meetings | Presented | Done
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| Oct 17 - 24 | Owners | Update wiki planning page to reflect any changes made after the final draft was posted | Updated to reflect "final" Q2 goals | Oct 24 | |
| Oct 24 | Joel | Publish to meta | Published on meta, along with notes from the meetings | Oct 24 | |
| Oct 24 - Nov 1 | Kevin/Joel | Conduct an asynchronous retrospective of this planning process, and write up results | Nov 1 | ||
See also: https://office.wikimedia.org/wiki/Quarterly_check-ins
Guidance for goal-setting
[edit]As you plan your goals, consider:
- This quarter (October-December) will generally be less productive for most teams, because of fundraising campaigns, and holidays. Each is likely to slow or block deployments, and holidays will affect not only your own team, but teams and individuals that you depend on. Don't build a plan that relies on deploying new features in December.
- Planned no (non-emergency) deployment weeks: Week of Nov 20th (Thanksgiving), December 18th and 25th (End of year holidays).
- Each goal should tie to an annual plan outcome and one or more of its objectives (or milestones). In rare cases, the work on a goal might serve multiple outcomes, so that can be handled on a case-by-case basis.
- By the end of Q2, we will be halfway through the fiscal year. Look at all the annual plan objectives for your program, and consider how well you are positioned to complete all the goals.
- Speaking of the annual plan, look ahead to work that will happen in Q3, and make sure any preparatory work is planned, to avoid bottlenecks and blockers later.
- Talk to your dependencies early and often! Don't assume they know what you are expecting of them. When appropriate, account for reviews by Security, Performance, Legal, etc.
- Team leads need to balance all the demands on their team's time. In addition to various program goals, the team may have its own internal work, as well as unexpected emergencies.
Presentation slots
[edit]Sustaining/Foundational
[edit]Sustaining
- TP1 Availability, Performance & Maintenance (R, C, K)
- TP3 Addressing Technical Debt (R, C, K)
- TP8 Multi-datacenter Support (R, C)
Foundational
- TP2 Mediawiki Refresh (C, R, K)
- TP6 Streamlined Service Delivery (C)
- PP1 Discoverability (C)
- X-SPDM Security, Privacy & Data Management (C)
- X-SDC Structured Data on Commons (C, K)
Community/Tech Community
[edit]Community
- TP5 Scoring Platform (ORES) (R, C, K)
- TP9 Growing Wikipedia Across Languages via Recommendations (R, C, K)
- TP7 Smart Tools for Better Data (C, R)
- TP11 Citations/Verifiability (K, C)
- TP12 Growing Contributor Diversity (R, C, K)
- X-CH Community Health/Anti-harassment (R, C)
Tech Community
- TP4 Technical Community Building (C, R)
- TP10 Public Cloud Services & Support (K, C)