[SM-Discuss] project organization
Eric Sandall
eric at sandall.us
Wed Feb 15 16:55:24 EST 2006
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On Tue, 14 Feb 2006, Jeremy Blosser (emrys) wrote:
> On Feb 13, Eric Sandall [eric at sandall.us] wrote:
<snip>
>> One possible organization (using some of the above ideas):
>> Project Lead (or Council of Elders formed of all the teams)
>> |-> Quality Assurance Lead (PL Assistant)
>> |-> Grimoire Team (QA Assistant)
>> |-> Sorcery Team (QA Assistant)
>> |-> Cauldron Team (QA Assistant)
>> |-> Tome Lead (PL Assistant)
>> |-> Public Relations Team (Tome Assistant)
>> |-> Web Team (Tome Assistant)
>> |-> Server Team (Tome Assistant)
>> |-> Documentation Team (Tome Assistant)
>
> This is similar to something I was throwing around, but didn't end up
> suggesting because I just don't like adding more tiers, and a lot of the
> grouping doesn't seem natural beyond having the 3 dev teams together. You
> could get rid of the second tiers by keeping the TLs reporting to the PL
> and just have optional APLs in those two roles, but I'm not sure how much
> it would all really help. I also wouldn't really call those two top level
> positions what they're called there, because I don't think they really
> relate to the current positions named. In the end I'm not really sure we
> need a separate QA team as much as we need the other TLs managing timely
> releases of their components. Those are sort of minor things but they can
> color the discussion anyway so I'll put them out there.
>
> Can anyone give some history of why we have so many defined teams for such
> a small project? I'll go out on a limb and suggest it might be more
> natural to not have it this way at all. Our developer base seems to split
> more naturally between those that mostly work on individual spells in
> certain areas of interest and those that work on whatever big things looks
> interesting or necessary at the moment, with a few others who really
> specialize in certain components like sorcery or the installer. But even
> those last tend to take serious interest in other areas if they look
> important to the project.
Future growth, I think is the reason. Once SMGL becomes bigger with
larger teams we wanted to be able to more easily manage everyone by
compartmentalizing them into teams.
> A possible arrangement based on the above would be something where we keep
> the TLs, but not the teams... make the TLs component leads or something
> instead, or the "council of elders" idea but with a PL still over them.
> Basically, have the majority of developers that work on spells continue to
> do that, then have a tier of more "free agent" types who are working on the
> hairier stuff, then from that group have specific leads identified so we
> continue to have ownership and oversight of the major areas instead of
> anarchy, then a PL over them. This arrangement would be very similar to
> what we have now except it would allow various team members to move more
> freely between projects as they're needed or want to, and would put a bit
> more responsibilty on the leads to make sure their areas were progressing
> toward their goals. I'm mostly making this up as I type it, but it seems
> like it might describe the kind of thing that happens naturally now.
> Acknowledging it and actively supporting it might find us spending less
> time spinning wheels and more time getting things done.
That's a good point. So we'd have more this structure?
Project Lead
|-> Cauldron Lead (Porting would probably move here)
|-> Grimoire Lead
|-> QA Lead (with Security being moved under here)
|-> Sorcery Lead
|-> Tome Lead (with PR being moved under here)
|-> Developers
That makes 5 "Teams" under the Project Lead and a group of Developers
open for assignment, with each Lead being responsible for their components
(e.g. Cauldron in charge of producing installers (e.g. ISOs)) and organizing
(through mailing lists, forums, and/or IRC) the "Developers" group, where any
Developer can work on any component (given they have permission from
the Lead of that component) and not being tied to any specific team.
I would still like the Grimoire Team to have section maintainers, but
perhaps that could be, again, people from the Developers group asking
the Grimoire Lead if they can maintain a section, and if Arwed says
okay, then that Developer can add themselves to the MAINTAINER file of
that section.
Anyone see problems with this? Shall we go ahead and do this?
- -sandalle
- --
Eric Sandall | Source Mage GNU/Linux Developer
eric at sandall.us | http://www.sourcemage.org/
http://eric.sandall.us/ | SysAdmin @ Inst. Shock Physics @ WSU
http://counter.li.org/ #196285 | http://www.shock.wsu.edu/
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