Community Relations/Planning

We are moving and adapting mw:Developer Relations/Planning.

Quarterly goals

We follow the process for defining quarterly goals used at Wikimedia Engineering/2015-16 Goals. It starts around the middle of the previous quarter, about seven weeks before the planned quarter starts.

Goals vs regular work

Quarterly goals are tasks that can be completed within a quarter. Regular workflows don't constitute goals per se, although significant and measurable improvements in these workflows can be defined as goals.

For people dedicating a lot of time to regular workflows, goals are a way to commit to non-regular tasks that must be completed, which otherwise would end up slipping month after month because of "regular work".

Individual goals and team goals

All goals are assigned to one person, who is the ultimate responsible of its successful completion. Sometimes that person is also in charge of doing most if not all the work required to achieve the goal. These are considered individual goals. Defining your individual goals and agreeing them with your team is also a way to define and agree what will not be a goal for you during the quarter. This is specially useful in busy times, when you must prioritize existing tasks or deal with new unexpected tasks.

Some goals are selected as team goals, and will define the priorities of the team during that quarter. All team members should be aware of the progress and main problems of the team goals, and should help within their capacity, even if sometimes this is done at the expense of their individual goals. Team collaboration is the main feature of a team!

Where to find candidates for goals

We need to find a balance between completing ongoing efforts and starting new ones. We need to make steps towards the implementation of our annual plans and team strategy, but we also need to leave room for autonomous experimentation and pet projects.

This is a good sequence to find candidates for goals:

1. Unfinished goals from the current quarter
2. Unfinished tasks from the current quarter, promoted as goals
3. Open tasks in our backlogs
4. Events and programs with fixed dates
5. Team annual plan
6. Team strategy

Goal-setting process

1. The process starts with the creation of a new section for the next quarter under Technical Collaboration/Goals and a related task in Phabricator.
2. An announcement is sent to wikitech-l, wikitech-ambassadors, and optionally other channels inviting everybody to propose, discuss, and help committing to quarterly goals.
3. Team members can start proposing goals at the wiki page, its discussion page, or team meetings.
4. By the deadline for goals drafted, all goal candidates should have a related task in Phabricator including related projects and measurement of success. Discussions specific to a goal should happen in its own task.
5. From that point, candidates will be prioritized through online discussions and team meetings until they have agreed at a department level.
6. By the end of the quarter, every team member has also agreed a list of individual goals with the rest of the team.