2020-06-23 Meeting notes

Date

Attendees

Goals

  • Meeting with Steering to review the purpose and objectives of the Roadmap Council

Discussion items

TimeItemWhoNotes
Introductions
  • Brief Introductions

Roadmap Council purpose and goalsNabeela

Group Name discussion and suggestionsRob

Q & A
  • Liaison to Steering


Notes

Introduction

  • Goal is to talk a bit about two topics
    • The recurring theme of Roadmap Council - what it is expected to do vs. what it is really chartered to address
    • If the council is doing what it is chartered to do, then how do we communicate this to the community?
    • Charter is not to create a single roadmap for the community, but instead to try and align various efforts within the community

Roadmap Council Purpose and Goals

  • When the Council started, this was chartered to bring together representatives for service providers, representatives from interest groups, and working groups to align project goals
    • Coordinating and communicating regarding community sprints was also a significant undertaking of this group
    • Every IG and WG defined their documents differently - the Roadmap Council first saw to try and standardize this by offering templating
    • Beyond this, there was a whitepaper published addressing the state of the technology in the community
    • Roadmap Council meets every two weeks
  • Project Management and Community Sprints
    • This Council was chartered to assist with managing and aligning these
    • 2020 saw an entire year of activity, along with a retrospective
      • Three Goals:
        • Analysis of roadmaps and planning cycles
          • The results of this will be presented during the next Partner Call
        • Facilitating to get code back into core
        • Communicating with the community at large
  • When we discuss facilitating contributing to core, is this murky or problematic?
    • If so, what are the obstacles?
    • It comes with challenges given the size of the community, and it will never be trivial
      • There have, however, been real successes
      • User management pieces in Hyku were extracted into a Gem and shared with Hyku and Avalon
        • Who contributed to this?
          • Avalon Team contracted with Notch8, Northwestern paid for the feature with grant funding
        • Roadmap Council makes these efforts known, and interested parties could request involvement and contribute funding or resources
        • The Roadmap Council identified the requirements for work in this case
        • Another Feature: DataCite Integration
          • All community members with this requirement produced a solution for this independently
  • Some assumed that the Roadmap Council is to coordinate rather than create a roadmap
    •  To what extent should the Roadmap Council invest in aligning IG/WG roadmaps and project roadmaps?
    • What of individual institutions and their roadmaps for custom Samvera repositories or local Samvera projects?
    • Community Manager is supposed to be a member of the Roadmap Council
      • They are responsible for representing the interests of individual institutions and their roadmaps
      • Community Manager clarifies that there might be similar functional requirements for different Samvera projects undertaken by different institutions
    • If we wish to expand the charter of the Council to address institutional roadmaps, this might be helpful, as this objective is not quite clear in the current charter
    • Roadmap Council could contribute some of the user stories (in terms of documentation and in order to exhibit the work which was achieved)
      • This would also be useful for the induction of the Community Manager
  • DataCite Integration
    • There are currently 7 implementations
    • Is there an activity for identifying which of these are being considered for inclusion into Samvera core?
    • After looking at multiple implementations, Notch8 has found that the implementations are extremely similar in structure
      • For the next institution which need this, perhaps they can work with the community instead
      • Also, it might also be helpful to have seasoned contributors work in order to "reclaim" projects into Samvera core
  • Avoiding duplication for future adopters would be very valuable
  • Gain an understanding and better communicate where the core code base is going
    • Additionally, indicating how this might affect other core components?
      • Example: Fedora 4 and Valkyrie
    • No one on Steering understood this Council to be chartered to create a single community Roadmap
      • However, where are the boundaries for this? Alignment definitely approaches this type of undertaking between core components and solution bundles
    • Discourse
      • Community members are very receptive to polite suggestions
      • Undertaking major solution bundles (Hyku and Avalon), implementers are knowledgeable of Valkyrie
        • There isn't much more coordination required beyond this point
        • The effort is still being directed, and the Hyrax Tech. Lead is engaging with other community developers to remain in alignment with these efforts
    • There may still be a communication opportunity for somehow discussing the alignment of the roadmaps between different projects
      • This would really be valuable if the Council could make the Valkyrie work for Hyrax much more visible to the community
        • Path for Avalon is to move to Hyrax, hence, the path to Valkyrie is to move to Hyrax on Valkyrie
        • Avalon still has functionality which Hyrax doesn't, and this still needs to be reconciled in such a way that is compatible with widespread community adoption
  • Roadmap Council is chartered to coordinate and support "asks"
    • Council cannot be responsible for proactively identifying who needs an ask, but representatives should be coming to the Council for support
    • How do we encourage representatives to engage with the Council?
      • Perhaps this is a Community Manager responsibility, but what should the path be before we have this role filled?
    • Past "asks" have not gone through the Roadmap Council
      • Steering could help by reiterating that the Roadmap Council is a contact point for support if your project requires resources and support
      • Agreed, that would be a good first step
    • General agreement about what the Roadmap Council is
      • Alignment between community project roadmaps
      • Coordinating between various institutions in order to reduce redundancy where possible
        • Once a Community Manager role is filled, Roadmap Council would support and assist the Manager
  • Branding Change
    • Council sounds a bit authoritative
    • "Roadmap" in the singular implies that there is a single Roadmap for the community
    • Currently, one proposed alternative is "Roadmaps Alignment Group"
    • Also, perhaps we may charter this as a phased Working Group
      • Perhaps we also state explicitly in the charter that we are not responsible for a single roadmap
      • Working Group might not be the ideal structure, as Interest Groups and Working Groups do eventually come to an end
      • The Core Component Maintenance WG is a recurring WG which recharters on an annual basis using different phases
        • We expect that the Component Maintenance WG will always continue, just with updated charters and new phases
      • Still, down the line, one could technically choose to close the Working Group in the distant future
      • Originally, Interest Groups were meant for loosely-organized discussions, where Working Groups were meant to be project-specific
        • This could be envisioned as an Executive Council, as this still holds more administrative authority
        • Roadmap Council can still revisit the charter and see about borrowing certain aspects of the Core Component Maintenance WG
        • Perhaps adopting the policy of rotation of leadership from other IGs or WGs can be explored
    • There is still going to be a subtext where some members may ask for a single community Roadmap, even if there is a branding change and update to the charter
  • Roadmap Council needs to understand how they can help the Community Manager
    • Community Manager should also have an explicit understanding of what is expected of them (with regards to the Roadmap Council)
    • Perhaps a small description of this dynamic could be helpful for advertising this role
      • Because this is a distributed job, it is going to be a challenge to meet with and explore the needs of each IG, WG, and institutional member
  • Should the Council rebrand?
    • Just changing the name might not address all of the problems encountered by the Roadmap Council
      • Perhaps another internal Roadmap Council meeting is first needed before the next steps are determined
    • Though there has never been a reserved seat for the Roadmap Council on Steering, have a liaison or common member has always been of extreme assistance
      • This can be evaluated after the elections, as the candidates themselves need to be assessed
      • Agreed, this was extremely valuable
  • How should Steering discuss the role of the Roadmap Council with Partners during the next call?
    • Further, how should resource concerns and questions be addressed?
    • Two items have been prioritized
      • What is the Roadmap Council/where is the roadmap?
      • Resourcing is important, but this wasn't addressed due to time constraints
        • There was a survey issued by the Roadmap Council to id