[teampractices] [Engineering] Feedback requested on proposal for creation of Agile Specialist Group

Tue Mar 4 06:46:38 UTC 2014

On Mon, Mar 3, 2014 at 9:24 PM, Ryan Lane <rlane at wikimedia.org> wrote:
> This is an engineering topic on an engineering list. That seemed like a good
> place to stop that message.

Hey Ryan,

as Roan noted, it's odd to characterize this as an "engineering
topic". Perhaps that makes sense from the ops/infrastructure
engineering perspective where a lot of work is truly purely and
exclusively done by engineers. But on a product with high end user
focus like a Mobile App, you tend to have designers, data analysts,
product managers, etc. All of these roles have to work together
harmoniously, so _of course_ all of them need to be able to influence
how the team works.

Even on infrastructure work, you often have cross-functional
collaboration. For example, Analytics is currently working with Ops on
assessing the ULSFO performance impact. Again, you have different
skills that come together - and that means needing to work together
effectively across roles.

In any case, the WMF engineering@ list covers the entire
engineering/product department and has generally been an inclusive
place where non-technical participation is welcome. We also created
the teampractices@ list (public & open) as a more focused place for
these kinds of conversations about, well, team practices, and this
thread was copied to that list as well.

Erik

-- 
Erik Möller
VP of Engineering and Product Development, Wikimedia Foundation