[OSGeo-Board] Sprinting

Thu Apr 20 11:17:57 PDT 2006

Re. Sprints for viscom -- in my experience effective branding, messaging, and well structured information to represent an organization requires a methodical approach that doesn't fit too well with the rapid-fire of a sprint. But maybe I'm misunderstanding the nature of a sprint.

A solid plan and coordinated efforts around osgeo visibility will be essential for success in this area.

Yup -- definitely easy to say and harder to do. But I just wanted to forewarn before we dive in.

Having said that -- I agree that viscomm and incubation are our biggest priorities, and I think this was reflected in the individual board member priorities.

Dave

-----Original Message-----
From: Chris Holmes <cholmes at openplans.org>
Date: Thu, 20 Apr 2006 14:00:01 
To:board at board.osgeo.org
Subject: [OSGeo-Board] Sprinting

Ok, just saw the agenda item about sprints tomorrow, and figured it's 
time to check another thing off my todo list.  Got back from two weeks 
in california, which is when this conversation went down, and have been 
meaning to sound in for awhile, but it became less urgent as the idea 
for an incubation sprint seemed to simmer down a bit.

(from jo)
> So I imagine an Incubation Sprint, if the Foundation was in a position
> to sponsor one, would address both sides of this, depending on how soon
> it could happen or needed to happen: 
> 1/ To establish a firm contract / ruleset describing 'graduation'
> 2/ To help more projects resolve their incubation issues
> 
> Chris first coined the phrase "Incubation Sprint", and I've been 
> using it without fully inspecting it; so this has been an excuse 
> for me to look over the Incubation status docs and get a sense 
> of where the holes are; and I would appreciate an elucidation
> from Chris about what else the term could mean. 
I'd not thought in depth as to what it might actually mean.  The root 
thought is just that it's hard for all of us to find time to work 
specifically on foundation stuff, and if we're to all meet in a specific 
place with a mandate to 'to do something', then things will get done. 
Perhaps this just reflects on my less than stellar time management, but 
when juggling a ton of different priorities it helps to just get me 
around people who are all focused on one of the priorities.

In my mind, the main thing I would see an incubation sprint doing is 
first setting some goals of what it means to be a 'foundation project', 
and then working to meet some of them.  To some extent I'm thinking 
basic stuff, ie everyone putting up a solid home page on CN, structuring 
those pages to look and feel similar, with links in similar places.  And 
then perhaps an overview document of the foundation projects, when to 
use what, ect.  Beyond that, just having everyone spend 4 hours 
furthering their IP checks, for example.  Basically all the kinds of 
bitch work tasks that no one's excited about but that need to get done.

> Perhaps there's not enough in Incubation alone to justify people
> getting together F2F; the process will evolve through the wiki, and the
> projects will complete the process according to their own momentum. 
> Something that is simply a "policy" sprint may not generate
> excitement; that's why I'd like to include a code/shared project
> aspect, and why I thought of the phrase Incubation/Stack Sprint.
I think the other sprint I see as very valuable at this point in time 
would be a VisComm sprint.  Put together a coherent set of documents 
that answer 'what is open source?', 'why does it matter in geo?' 'I'm a 
user, developer, big vendor, ect., how can it help me?'.  Possibly do 
use cases of how OSGeo projects can help you, tutorials on how to get 
involved in a project, ect.  Even just make up some nice slides that 
people can use, some coherent messaging.

VisComm and incubation I sort of see as the two things we most want to 
get done sooner rather than later.  I basically see a face to face 
meeting and a room with internet connections as kick in the pants to get 
some effort in to them.  Also they are sort of news items of us 'doing 
something' in and of themselves, as we can announce that we're having 
one, and then point to what was accomplished at it.  I'm fine with doing 
these before mid-June, though it's not really all that far away.

Anyways, we can chat on the phone, I just wanted to sound in with 
thoughts that had got neglected (sorry Jo!)

best regards,

Chris

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