Open Stack

Excerpts from Matt Riedemann's message of 2016-10-10 11:51:36 -0500:
> On 10/10/2016 8:59 AM, Sean McGinnis wrote:
> > On Mon, Oct 10, 2016 at 08:37:53AM -0400, Doug Hellmann wrote:
> >>> <snip>
> >>
> >> We had a lot of feedback that the unstructured discussion time from
> >> the Friday "meetups" at the summits were the most productive time
> >> for teams, but I'm sure there are quite a few cases like what you
> >> describe. Maybe the solution is to schedule part, but not all, of
> >> the PTG time?
> >>
> >> It would be hard to say that a particular day is or is not scheduled,
> >> because not all teams will have rooms available to them every day.
> >> We could slice it the other way, though, and say that multi-project
> >> topics should be scheduled in the morning. That still leaves all
> >> of the afternoons for less structured discussions. Of course, not all
> >> teams will necessarily have multi-project topics.
> >
> > Having even just one day of scheduled topics might make it easier to
> > organize around topics that don't necessarily fall under the "cross
> > project" category, yet still affect more than one project and would
> > benefit from a set time for all to attend.
> >
> > Whether that is one day dedicated to that format, or something like AMs
> > scheduled, PMs freeform, I do think it is good to have the mix. We've
> > been able to make it through a lot of topics by not timeboxing certain
> > things, so the unscheduled part definitely has benefit.
> >
> > The risk with an AM/PM split would be, as an example, that Nova has
> > something scheduled that is significant to Cinder, so Cinder has to
> > dedicated a scheduled slot to match up with it. Just a thought, but if
> > we so split days like that, it might actually be good to have an A track
> > and B track, where A tracks have AMs scheduled and B tracks have PMs
> > scheduled. Maybe making things more complicated than they need to be,
> > but if Nova has scheduled sessions in the morning and Cinder
> > unscheduled, it might make it easy to take break and attend the other
> > sessions, and vice versa.
> >
> > Sean (smcginnis)
> >
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> 
> I think we're probably over-complicating this. The nova/cinder midcycles 
> have happened at the same time in different timezones for the last two 
> releases. We've scheduled a time on a particular day and time that works 
> for both teams to get into a hangout session. Yes it's a scheduled 
> thing, but it's still pretty informal and when you only have to deal 
> with maybe a couple of those types of things during a midcycle it's not 
> overwhelming to plan ahead of time.
> 
> If the PTG turns into the design summit with 40 minute blocks of 
> discussion, it's going to really negatively impact the productivity of 
> midcycles.
> 

I think there's some perspective warping going on, and it's very
concerning to me.

Productivity inside the project is great, and we should definitely box
out more than just one day of the PTG for just those high bandwidth
internal project face to face discussions.

However, I think there's a danger of siloing even further if all three
days are just project team open ended face time. Those 40 minute sessions
may not seem productive to the project team, but they are massively
helpful for newcomers, for those who are shifting focus, and for those
who want to influence design at the early stages. They're also incredibly
useful for being able to tell the general developer community what the
project is doing, which I'm surprised more people don't want.

What I'd suggest is that we do have a single schedule, and that project
teams schedule their time to suit their needs, with the
following guidelines:

   If you are going to discuss a large spec for the first time in the
   week, dedicate a 40 minute session to that initial discussion on
   Wednesday.

   If you are going to discuss something that is controversial for the
   first time in the week, bring that up in a 40 minute summary session
   on Wednesday.

This might lead to what, 5 or 6 40 minute sessions on Wednesday at the
worst? The rest can just be project team work time. However, it gives
people like me, who want to make sure we're paying attention to the
right stuff in many projects a chance to introduce ourselves, raise a
hand and ask a few questions, and insert ourselves in the agenda so we
can be pinged and hopefully participate where it makes sense.

Whatever we do, please consider dismantling the silos, rather than
reinforcing them.