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Nate Johnston wrote:
> On Thu, Sep 05, 2019 at 11:59:22AM +0200, Thierry Carrez wrote:
>> - allow "PTL" role to be multi-headed, so that it is less of a superhuman
>> and spreading the load becomes more natural. We would not elect/choose a
>> single person, but a ticket with one or more names on it. From a governance
>> perspective, we still need a clear contact point and a "bucket stops here"
>> voice. But in practice we could (1) contact all heads when we contact "the
>> PTL", and (2) consider that as long as there is no dissent between the
>> heads, it is "the PTL voice". To actually make it work in practice I'd
>> advise to keep the number of heads low (think 1-3).
> 
> I think there was already an effort to allow the PTL to shed some of their
> duties, in the form of the Cross Project Liaisons [1] project.  I thought that
> was a great way for more junior members of the community to get involved with
> stewardship and be recognized for that contribution, and perhaps be mentored up
> as they take a bit of load off the PTL.  I think if we expand the roles to
> include more of the functions that PTLs feel the need to do themselves, then by
> doing so we (of necessity) document those parts of the job so that others can
> handle them.  And perhaps projects can cooperate and pool resources - for
> example, the same person who is a liaison for Neutron to Oslo could probably be
> on the look out for issues of interest to Octavia as well, and so on.

Cross-project liaisons are a form of delegation. So yes, PTLs already 
can (and probably should) delegate most of their duties. And in a lot of 
teams it already works like that. But we have noticed that it can be 
harder to delegate tasks than share tasks. Basically, once someone is 
the PTL, it is tempting to just have them do all the PTL stuff (since 
they will do it by default if nobody steps up).

That makes the job a bit intimidating, and it is sometimes hard to find 
candidates to fill it. If it's clear from day 0 that two or three people 
will share the tasks and be collectively responsible for those tasks to 
be covered, it might be less intimidating (easier to find 2 x 50% than 1 
x 100% ?).

-- 
Thierry Carrez (ttx)