[OSGeo-Board] Sprinting

[Gary Lang]

Dave,

In my mind, this Sprint would be the kickoff for setting up a methodical
approach.

Gary

-----Original Message-----
From: Dave McIlhagga (External) 
Sent: Thursday, April 20, 2006 11:18 AM
To: Chris Holmes; board at board.osgeo.org
Subject: Re: [OSGeo-Board] Sprinting

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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