docs: Relates to #12. Project Management Process #13

ltfschoen · 2019-03-12T14:23:14Z

Relates to Issue #12

Relates to Ethereum Cat Herders Meeting #8

lookfirst · 2019-03-13T04:36:57Z

Thanks, this is a lot of stuff. My gut feeling is that it is all too much dry Dilbert corporate speak for a decentralized team. There is a lot of missing gaps and TODOs. It isn't really a definition of process, it is mostly a lot of definitions. Is this really what you want an organization called 'cat herders' to follow?

ltfschoen · 2019-03-13T08:52:18Z

Thanks, this is a lot of stuff. My gut feeling is that it is all too much dry Dilbert corporate speak for a decentralized team. There is a lot of missing gaps and TODOs. It isn't really a definition of process, it is mostly a lot of definitions. Is this really what you want an organization called 'cat herders' to follow?

Thanks for your comment.

Thanks, this is a lot of stuff. My gut feeling is that it is all too much dry Dilbert corporate speak for a decentralized team.

In the past I worked for many years with "distributed" teams in government and global consultancies on programs and projects using project management plans like this that are based on PMBOK to keep things "under control" organised and funded.

The extent of "dry Dilbert" paperwork that we'd add to the project management plan was tailored based on an initial project risk assessment that considered aspects such as the project complexity (i.e. complex projects required extra due diligence). I think Ethereum is now a complex project. The "Ethereum Cat Herders" are its project managers and should leverage globally respected Quality Management System based on quality standards like ISO 9001:2000 when tailoring its Project Management Plan. In addition, the "Ethereum Cat Herders" will need to further tailor and improve it so that it may be incorporated into "decentralised" technologies instead of initial reliance on just its "distributed" team.

There is a lot of missing gaps and TODOs

That's because I haven't spent much time on it yet. I only started putting it together the evening before "Ethereum Cat Herders Meeting #7 - Agenda" #8 so at least an initial DRAFT would be available for review.

Help finding the missing gaps or suggesting removal or restructuring of certain contents should be the easy part. I would appreciate help identifying each specific missing gaps as part of the PR review comments.

Most of the TODOs are just more common templates that we'd need to tailor and then populate in workshops. Traditionally most of them are in Spreadsheets with Version Control.

It isn't really a definition of process, it is mostly a lot of definitions.

It's an overarching Project Management Plan. The purpose of the document is stated in "Section 1.2 - Document Purpose" as:
identifies decentralised procedures, processes, and management systems to adopt to satisfy requirements in undertaking Eth1.x

The definitions are in "Section 11 - GLOSSARY"

If you're priority is just to define the associated overarching process we'd need to action the TODO of creating an Ethereum Project Process Manual, unless it already exists.

But I think the priority is creating a Risk Management Process, performing a Risk Assessment, conducting Risk Workshops, and populating and actioning items in a Risk Register.

Is this really what you want an organization called 'cat herders' to follow?

I attended the Berlin Council 2018 and the recent Council of Paris 2019. I was shocked to see "PM Broken" as still being a concern. I think Ethereum Cat Herders should address this concern before the next Ethereum Magicians meeting by adopting and tailoring their own project management framework to be followed.

lookfirst · 2019-03-13T15:15:42Z

The "Ethereum Cat Herders" are its project managers and should leverage globally respected Quality Management System based on quality standards like ISO 9001:2000 when tailoring its Project Management Plan.

Hmm. I'm obviously not in a position to draw a line in the ground on this stuff, but I personally find that to be a really concerning absolute statement. The idea that a decentralized open source community should follow an ISO just seems like a non-starter for a lot of people. I can't imagine advertising this somewhere and saying "Look at us! We're ISO 9001:2000!" and expecting anyone who does not have government and global consultancies level experience to want to join in on that.

I could go ahead and pick apart your PR line by line, but I don't think we are even starting off on the same footing of agreement. I just have a hard time believing that anyone will actually read and follow this stuff. It really makes my Dilbert detector go off too strongly.

For example, I took one of the first lines out of the first document... What does that 'appropriate level of Ethereum Authority' even mean?

Amendments may be only made after decentralised approval by those granted with the appropriate level of Ethereum Authority.

Anyway, I'm not trying to pull my thing out and swing it around. But I'd like to share my background in an effort to show you where I am coming from as well. I appreciate that you have a huge amount of experience in this area, but I'm not certain it applies to this sort of community.

I've been an Apache Software Foundation member for over 20 years (I started Java @ Apache). I also started several of my own companies and spent some time at Pivotal Labs. At Pivotal, I got to learn their way of managing things and it opened my eyes quite a bit. While it isn't perfect, it did help me be
successful in several businesses.

The idea of working within a framework like you are proposing seems like a surefire way to put a bunch of stuff into git that few people will actually read or follow over a long period of time. So, go ahead and merge the PR. Maybe 6 months from now, we revisit things. I'd love to be proven wrong on this and see how successful we can make this project become.

timbeiko

I looked over this document and I think there are good ideas, but that it would be valuable to separate what the "state of the art" is from what is a concrete suggestion for the Cat Herders to implement now.

Given the overhead and coordination cost of implementing such processes, I would suggest doing a sort of 80-20 analysis to find what the highest impact process improvements could be and to better define those in the context of the ECH.

timbeiko · 2019-03-20T14:39:04Z