Teamwork

[DGDanforth]

We need to partition the work load equally and fairly.
I suggest the following way to accomplish that.

There are m members belonging to the Center.

(1) Have the Chair assign a unique identification number (ID) to each member ranging from 0, ..., m-1.
(2) Form the members into a ring with member i having a left partner, (i-1) MOD m, and a
right partner, (i+1) MOD m.
(3) Those groups form (overlapping) teams to work on issues.
(4) Have the Chair create m lists (one for each link between members) Eg. With 4 members they form a square
with 4 sides so there would be 4 lists. The lists are of length n DIV m where n is the number of current unresolved
BlackBox issues. The left over n MOD m items are scattered randomly amongst the m lists.
(5) Each member has two lists (left and right) to work on. The ith member has a left partner who works on the
the left list with i and has a right partner who works on the right list with i. So each member i is working on two issues at a time with two different members.
(6) As agreement is reached on how to solve an issue the issue, with its solution, is given to the Chair. The Chair
then collates the returned issues and forms them into a candidate release.

At the beginning of the process and after step (6) is when Josef's and Ivan's comments about how to actually keep track of these issues in git, etc, become relevant and is not addressed here in this topic.

This topic deals only with how to partition the work load of the Center and how to make it run smoothly.

-Doug

[Ivan Denisov]

Do you think, that the issues list should goes from public bigger community or this issues should be formulated by the Center members only?

[DGDanforth]

Do you think, that the issues list should goes from public bigger community or this issues should be formulated by the Center members only?

It should come from any one such as the larger community (and be vetted , first checked) by the Center members.

[ReneK]

Doug,

I think this is a good concept and should be done.

But do you think that the chair should really take the lead in this? As of current, the Chair is responsible for voting issues. We can add your proposal to the chair's responsibility, or we can define another "officer" to do it.

I am not opposed to doing the work, I just do not want the chair to get too much power by default.

If the members want the Chair to do it (and not a new office) that's fine for me.

[DGDanforth]

Doug,

I think this is a good concept and should be done.

But do you think that the chair should really take the lead in this? As of current, the Chair is responsible for voting issues. We can add your proposal to the chair's responsibility, or we can define another "officer" to do it.

I am not opposed to doing the work, I just do not want the chair to get too much power by default.

If the members want the Chair to do it (and not a new office) that's fine for me.

Rene,
We need more discussion on that question.
Here is a possible alternative.
Have the whole Center look at the submitted solutions.
Have each member vote on each solution (YES, or NO).
Have a threshold for acceptance, say 60-70%, of including the issue in the next release UNLESS
there is raised by one of the member an OBJECTION with extensive reasons for why the solution is
not acceptable. The issue can go into debate mode with the chair choosing to close the discussion
at any time at which point a second and final vote is taken.

Other options welcomed.

[Ivan Denisov]

Doug, this plan looks very obligatory, however our organization is a lot of about volunteering and joy from the work. It was difficult to have good emotions with so slow tempo, but I adopted and fill OK now. I think that working on a random task from the list not best idea for having fun. However you are right, "How to involve every member to the activity?".
1. Make some issues list and let people chose some task they wanted to work with;
2. Let members to add some issues they wanted to work with or wanted to have a solution and somebody will catch initiative and solve it;

I prefer second variant. The both variants need Issues tracker soon.

[DGDanforth]

Doug, this plan looks very obligatory, however our organization is a lot of about volunteering and joy from the work. It was difficult to have good emotions with so slow tempo, but I adopted and fill OK now. I think that working on a random task from the list not best idea for having fun. However you are right, "How to involve every member to the activity?".
1. Make some issues list and let people chose some task they wanted to work with;
2. Let members to add some issues they wanted to work with or wanted to have a solution and somebody will catch initiative and solve it;

I prefer second variant. The both variants need Issues tracker soon.

Ivan,
I agree with your desire to have a more flexible approach.
My suggestion was simply to get things moving.
I can support both (1.) and (2.). My worry is that some issues will not be attended to
because they are complex and uninteresting but their solution is needed.

So if we can get an issues tracker that all of us can see then, yes, we can start to
pick off and work on them.

-Doug

[ReneK]

I think that discussing every single bug will not happen. It seems that we are all bound by different obligations already, and there are not enough members to keep discussions thriving. So, either we raise the "critical mass" of those discussing things, or we appoint members to do something, I believe.

This may change over time, and we have not yet tapped into the ressource of non-center members.

Just my 2 c.