First dot-voting experiment on roadmap priorization

Product Development Process
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As explained in the:

We are proposing you to experiment a dot voting system so that the daily committed people in OFN, who are in contact with users or potential users all the time, can have a say in what should be prioritized in priority.
Of course those persons should also keep in mind that we have tech debt that needs to be prioritized, and some other things that are non tech but more on process.

1- Where we vote and how

  • have started to do some (incomplete) work on curating wishlist items and github issues into icebox items and have put them all in this big spreadsheet. Hopefully the main ones are there, if you are missing some very big and urgent potential focus please shout!

  • A week before the date planned for the product curation team quater meeting you will be invited to “dot vote” for the thing you believe are really a priority for the OFN in your perspective. We will propose an open session when the voting period starts for anyone to ask questions to the icebox curators team if some of the items in the spreadsheet are not clear. We can also discuss that in the global zoom meeting before the voting period if dates match ok.

  • Each person who can vote has a column with their name on it. You have 10 “x” to allocate, you can put as much as you want on only one if you have such an urgent point that all the other ones don’t count. Or distribute them. You can also add comments to the cells you allocate votes if you want to explain some reason why you think this is really important.

  • To make it easier, I suggest you filter on the “when” column like for instance kick out “later” and “even later” (you can check if you want to quickly that you agree that it’s for later, at least it was not in discussions about 2018 roadmap in Aus). Keep in mind that “2018 - Q1” items might roll over to Q2 in some cases (Spree upgrade for instance).

  • If you want to add “users concerned” please add them column G, that will also be a useful indicator for curation team. And add also if you know external funding available for some specific features column H.

2- Who can vote

I propose that only the people who have the ability to curate ideas into icebox can vote. It seems consistent to me, as those people are the one being daily in contact with users. So to sum it up here we have:

I created for each of you a column in the big spreadsheet. Enjoy :slight_smile:

3- How this is going to be used

The curation team when they meet will look at the things you would prioritize and why, the potential other fundings available and if that concerns many users or not. Then they will use that to do the hard priorization choices, balancing also tech debt things or long term things over short term ones given the priorities we discussed previously.

This result will be shared on #global community channel on Slack.

If at the end of this process you feel any tension please raise your voice, this is just a first iteration on that process and we might need to improve it so that we all feel happy :slight_smile:

2 Likes
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@MyriamBoure - I just tried to vote but I don’t seem to have edit access. It tells me I can only comment . Am I missing something? Shouldn’t I be able to put my votes in my column?

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Sorry @tschumilas it seems you didn’t have access on the OFN global drive, I fixed that straight away. Also changed permission to edit in the file so you won’t have any issue now :slight_smile:

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After the first round of dot voting, and give the feedback you shared at last gobal zoom meeting, I did the following changes:

  • shared the outcome of last curation meeting here: Priorities for April > June 2018 (Q2)
  • archived the dot votes for Q2 and locked tab and did some changes in the full model tab that we use for next priorization in the spreadsheet: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1k5E2PJm-c33_lmgM9ueTOT6jnb1HZI7nHuPXA7bBJkY/edit#gid=1904580901
    • put in black the cells of items already prioritized (you shouldn’t prioritize again, should avoid confusion)
    • changed the Q1 priorities still doing in Q2 for Q2 to update so that you see all what we are still working on in Q2
  • amended a bit the above process to organize an open zoom session when we launch the dot voting process to enable anyone who has questions on some items or on the process to ask them to icebox curators team (could be done in global zoom meeting potentially)

If you have any other feedback on the dot voting / priorization process please share them @Kirsten @tschumilas @NickWeir @lin_d_hop @CynthiaReynolds @sauloperez @enricostn and others

1 Like
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Brilliant :slight_smile: thank you Myriam :heart_eyes:

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@MyriamBoure :ok_hand:

We should have a standing agenda item about product curation @MyriamBoure, that way we can provide updates on how we are progressing on the quarter goals, and also kick off voting at the gathering before each curation team prioritisation meeting.

1 Like
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Just adding some notes of potential improvements :

  • having one column per instance who vote on the instance priorities (some can be same as global priorities, but more “user oriented”, how to feed our users with what they nee
  • having some global POs and devs putting priorities with only global in mind for platform foundation, stability, go toward our vision, make sure we include tech debt, etc.
    I think we would have more balanced results as we are alays torn betwee the conciousness of global needs and the requests from our local users… so maybe separate those two hats will make things a little easier?
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I like the idea of voters representing different perspectives when they vote - or at least, having those perspectives - or ‘hats’ - transparent and identified. So xx is voting with a global view on code stability and tech debt, and xx is voting with a large user in mind, and… I’n not sure we need to ‘go back’ to representing instances. It seems like a step backward. BUT - we need to represent various users as well as we need to represent the platform and our vision. Can we ‘assign’ voters different perspectives?