Hello all,
Following up on Tajh’s announcement email, the TDMP Retro team would like
to invite you to engage with us on this retro process. As was mentioned,
this retro will open the door for input from varied stakeholders and input
will be requested through multiple venues, to make sure all stakeholders
are able to contribute to the conversation.
As a first step, the core team would like to invite you to read our
planning document
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_decision_making/Technical_Decision-Making_Process_Retrospective_and_Consultation_plan>,
and offer insights
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Talk:Technical_decision_making/Technical_Decision-Making_Process_Retrospective_and_Consultation_plan>
on the administrative side of this retro process:
-
Are there any stakeholders we have left out?
-
Any unclear parts of the retro process?
-
What communication channels are important for engagement in the retro
process? Ex: Mailing list, Talk pages, IRC, other?
We will soon start working towards the next steps, which will delve into
the substantive input about the process from all stakeholders.
We are hopeful that this process will enable and encourage all voices to be
heard, and result in valuable insights into the needs and requirements of
the technical community when it comes to decision-making.
You can communicate with us through:
-
The MediaWiki talk page:
https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_decision_making/Technical_Decision…
-
Phabricator ticket:
https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T333235
-
Core team mailing list: tdf-retro-2023(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Thank you,
Moriel, on behalf of the TDMP Retro Core Group
Core group:
-
Moriel Schottlender (chair)
-
Daniel Kinzler
-
Chris Danis
-
Kosta Harlan
-
Temilola Adeleye
On Thu, Mar 30, 2023 at 7:48 AM Tajh Taylor <ttaylor(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
TLDR: The Foundation will be conducting a
retrospective on the Technical
Decision Making Process.
To the entire Wiki technical community,
For quite some time now, we have experienced issues with the Technical
Decision Making Process (TDMP). Volunteer contributors and staff have asked
if we are still operating the Technical Decision Forum (TDF, the member
body that participates in the TDMP). Communication about it from the
Foundation has been inconsistent, and interest from the volunteer community
in joining has been low. Some of our most senior engineers on Foundation
staff have expressed that the process is flawed, doesn’t create room for
discussion about the technical issues surrounding a decision, and doesn’t
ensure participation by all stakeholders who may be affected by the
decision. Suffice it to say, the current state of affairs leaves many
participants wanting more.
We must also remind ourselves of the purpose of a decision making
process. The decisions are not meant to be random or isolated. They
should be aligned to our technical strategy, and we should be able to look
at the decisions we have made and understand how they advance our progress
against that strategy. If the process is working as it should, the
decisions that are produced should represent settled wisdom, and not need
to be revisited too quickly. The goals for a well-run process include:
-
A straightforward, widely understood decision making process, that
-
Facilitates impactful technical decisions to be made in a timely
manner,
-
Incorporates input from staff and volunteers in our technical
community, with
-
Decisions that align with accountability for decision outcomes, and
-
Clear communication and transparent operations throughout the process.
On examination of the contributing factors that have led us to this point,
the factor that stands out to me is the need for clear accountability:
accountability for the TDMP itself and accountability for each of the
decisions we make. Technical decision making, beyond a certain magnitude,
is a core organizational process for any engineering organization. It is
therefore important for us to examine and improve this process from time to
time to ensure organizational effectiveness. Not unrelated, regular
retrospectives are a routine agile software engineering practice to enact
continuous improvement. To keep our decision making process effective and
efficient, we need to conduct regular retros. Overall accountability for
maintaining an effective decision making process should rest with a person
who is sufficiently able to marshal resources and address problems at a
large scale – here at the Foundation, that resides in the executive level.
The Foundation will be conducting a retro on the TDMP over the next couple
of months. Because we don’t yet have a habit of doing retros on this
process, and because there is a wide range of stakeholders we seek to hear
from, the process will be a bit more structured than an ordinary retro, and
will take more time. As we do more of these, we should get better at them.
The feedback gathered through the retro will be used to make changes to
improve the TDMP.
Foundation staff will follow up with more information about the kickoff of
the retro and what steps will follow. I am looking forward to wide
participation in this retro.
Here are the links to the relevant wiki page and Phab ticket:
- Wiki page
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Technical_decision_making/Technical_Decision-Making_Process_Retrospective_and_Consultation_plan>
- Phabricator ticket <https://phabricator.wikimedia.org/T333235>
Thank you! And apologies for all the crossposting.
Tajh Taylor (he/him/his)
VP, Data Science & Engineering
Wikimedia Foundation <https://wikimediafoundation.org/>
--
Moriel Schottlender (she/her <https://pronoun.is/she>)
Principal System Architect, Architecture Team
<https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Architecture_Team>
Wikimedia Foundation
https://wikimediafoundation.org/