Re: [Babeldoc-devel] Project Leadership

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Hi, all,

In light of Dejan's comments, perhaps it would be a good time to make a
slight change to the way the project is run.  Instead of a single PM, we
could elect a very small team, say 3 people, who can drive the project
(the Project Management (PM) team).  A core team of another four or five
people can operate around them (this is by mutual consent, on
invitation), providing any required skill support (mostly development,
but it may include other skills).

The PM team would be involved in:
a) dispute resolution within the core team where required (I would
expect most disputes to be resolved by discussion), 
b) perhaps some PR jobs (having three people would allow for at least
one person who can talk to journos, and make public statements, etc.,
which Dejan indicated he may not be comfortable with), or sometimes just
clarifying issues on the mailing lists, issuing summaries of
discussions, etc.
c) various administrative tasks, such as adding new developers, and
ensuring continuity within the PM and core teams, holding elections
where required, etc.  Bruce will need to hand these over.

NOTE: Core team = PM team + core developers; core developers != all
developers with commit access.  Although some of the committers will be
core developers, all the committers would continue at least with their
current level of commitment to the project.  Core developers are
expected to provide extra skills when called upon, so although it won't
have an immediate impact, it is an extra commitment to the project.  As
the list of committers becomes larger, these people will form the core
technical decision-making structure.

Apart from Dejan, I don't see any other candidate for a single PM, but
without restructuring, the project may well lose Dejan's input at a PM
level, which would be a significant loss.  A structure such as proposed
here would allow the project to keep Dejan's skills and experience at
the PM level, but complement them with other skills and perspective from
somebody else, and provide Dejan (who I see as being a definite for one
of the PM positions) with the support he requires.
In fact, with a structure such as this, enough pressure may be taken off
Bruce to allow him to continue as part of the PM team as well.  But even
if he decides not to, it still allows Bruce to operate in the core team,
which is a significant advisory role, without the extended overhead of
full project management.

It is important, using a structure such as this, to get people on the PM
team who are going to work together, and not land up arguing over
pointless stuff.  Also, the burden of duties must be agreeably (although
not necessarily equally) shared.  These should be taken into account
when making nominations.

I hope this provides a start for some debate on the subject.

Cheers...

MikeA

On Mon, 2003-11-17 at 14:36, Dejan Krsmanovic wrote:
> Hi all,
> First of all I have to say that I am pretty suprised by Bruce's decission!
> Especially because I haven't worked on Babeldoc a lot last few months.
> I also I am not sure how much time I will have for Babeldoc in next months,
> too. I have worked on Babeldoc a lot when I needed it for one project. Since
> that project has been stopped I have contributed here because I like this
> project. I have many other reponsibilites now that make my greater involment
> in Babeldoc pretty hard.
> 
> Also, I am not native English speaker (I leave in Belgrade, Serbia and
> Montenegro) which could also be a problem in situations when someone need to
> talk in front of project and I am sure that there will be such situations
> since this project is growing.
> 
> I really think that there should be more than one project leader since this
> is open source project and no one can expect from anyone to be always
> avaliable. I know that I won't be! So I really think Bruce should remain PM.
> I also think we should include more people as PMs since we could hardly find
> one person that could spend enough time for Babeldoc. Today is much better
> situation then one year ago when there were only Bruce and me. Now we have
> many contributors and I think some of them could be prometed as PM. It would
> reduce risk and secure future of this project.
> 
> Dejan
> P.S.
> Bruce, how this imacts on Babeldoc site and domain? I know that it is
> currently hosted at your home.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Bruce McDonald" <br...@mc...>
> To: <bab...@li...>
> Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2003 9:27 PM
> Subject: [Babeldoc-devel] Project Leadership
> 
> 
> > All,
> >
> > Its been a great ride.  It seems that 1.2 is way beyond anything any of us
> > expected.  Its birth took some time and we need to consider the future.
> At
> > the moment the organization needs to be considered.  I am the project
> > founder, leader, developer, tester and build co-ordinator.  Obviously I
> > cannot fulfill all these roles and still be effective in all of them.  To
> > remedy this, I want to resign as project leader.  I will still develop,
> test
> > and build (if need be).  I obviously cannot yield the title of founder and
> I
> > am proud of this accomplishment.  I will support those people that you
> choose
> > to lead this project.
> >
> > I want to open this project up and I nominate Dejan Krsmanovic as project
> > leader.  I feel that Dejan has the skills to look into the future and to
> make
> > the ultimate calls about code inclusion and exclusion.
> >
> > Please submit the names of those others who have done work on Babeldoc and
> in
> > two weeks time, submit a vote on the project leader.
> >
> > regards,
> > Bruce McDonald.
> >
> >
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> 
> 
> 
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