[openstack-dev] [all] A true cross-project weekly meeting

Doug Hellmann doug at doughellmann.com
Thu Nov 20 20:11:57 UTC 2014


On Nov 20, 2014, at 12:19 PM, Eoghan Glynn <eglynn at redhat.com> wrote:

>> 
>> Hi everyone,
>> 
>> TL;DR:
>> I propose we turn the "weekly project/release meeting" timeslot
>> (Tuesdays at 21:00 UTC) into a "weekly cross-project meeting", to
>> discuss cross-project topics with all the project leadership, rather
>> than keep it release-specific.
>> 
>> 
>> Long version:
>> 
>> Since the dawn of time (August 28, 2010 !), there has always been a
>> "project meeting" on Tuesdays at 21:00 UTC. It used to be a all-hands
>> meeting, then it turned more into a release management meeting. With the
>> addition of more integrated projects, all the meeting time was spent in
>> release status updates and there was no time to discuss project-wide
>> issues anymore.
>> 
>> During the Juno cycle, we introduced 1:1 sync points[1] for project
>> release liaisons (usually PTLs) to synchronize their status with the
>> release management team /outside/ of the meeting time. That freed time
>> to discuss integrated-release-wide problems and announcements during the
>> meeting itself.
>> 
>> Looking back to the Juno meetings[2], it's quite obvious that the
>> problems we discussed were not all release-management-related, though,
>> and that we had free time left. So I think it would be a good idea in
>> Kilo to recognize that and clearly declare that meeting the "weekly
>> cross-project meeting". There we would discuss release-related issues if
>> needed, but also all the others cross-project hot topics of the day on
>> which a direct discussion can help making progress.
>> 
>> The agenda would be open (updated directly on the wiki and edited/closed
>> by the chair a few hours before the meeting to make sure everyone knows
>> what will be discussed). The chair (responsible for vetting/postponing
>> agenda points and keeping the discussion on schedule) could rotate.
>> 
>> During the Juno cycle we also introduced the concept of Cross-Project
>> Liaisons[3], as a way to scale the PTL duties to a larger group of
>> people and let new leaders emerge from our community. Those CPLs would
>> be encouraged to participate in the weekly cross-project meeting
>> (especially when a topic in their domain expertise is discussed), and
>> the meeting would be open to all anyway (as is the current meeting).
>> 
>> This is mostly a cosmetic change: update the messaging around that
>> meeting to make it more obvious that it's not purely about the
>> integrated release and that it is appropriate to put other types of
>> cross-project issues on the agenda. Let me know on this thread if that
>> sounds like a good idea, and we'll make the final call at next week
>> meeting :)
> 
> +1 to involving the liaisons more directly
> 
> -1 to the meeting size growing too large for productive real-time
>   communication on IRC
> 
> IME, there's a practical limit on the number of *active* participants
> in an IRC meeting. Not sure what that magic threshold is, but I suspect
> not much higher than 25.
> 
> So given that we're in an era of fretting about the scalability
> challenges facing cross-project concerns, I'd hate to paint ourselves
> into a corner with another cross-project scalability challenge.
> 
> How about the agenda each week includes a specific invitation to a
> subset of the liaisons, based on relevance?

The focused teams each already have (or can have) separate meetings. In Oslo meetings, for example, we spent time every week coordinating between our liaisons and core team. AIUI, the point of Thierry’s proposal is to bring more people interested in cross-project issues together for cross-pollination and brainstorming for issues that we can afford to wait for a meeting to discuss (vs. outages). 

Doug

> 
> (e.g. the week there's a CI brownout, request all the QA liaisons attend;
> whereas the week that the docs team launch a new contribution workflow,
> request that all the docs liaisons are present).
> 
> Possibly with a standing invite to the release-mgmt liaison (or PTL)?
> 
> Of course, as you say, the meeting is otherwise open-as-open-can-be.
> 
> Cheers,
> Eoghan
> 
>> [1] https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/Meetings/ProjectMeeting
>> [2] http://eavesdrop.openstack.org/meetings/project/2014/
>> [3] https://wiki.openstack.org/wiki/CrossProjectLiaisons
>> 
>> -- 
>> Thierry Carrez (ttx)
>> 
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