Team Questions

[jianwangcat]

Overview

We need to have our questions documented so that we can answer them in writing and add recurring questions to the Wiki.

Action Items

• Add your question to a comment below
• Answer question and block quote the original question in your comment
  • Indicate if this information should be added to the Wiki

Resources/Instructions

https://github.com/hackforla/guides/wiki

[jianwangcat]

Can you provide an overview of the various stages in our project's lifecycle and identify which stage we're currently in? For instance, are we at the ideation, planning, customer survey, execution, or testing phase?

[jianwangcat]

What are the key responsibilities assigned to the product manager in this project, and where would you recommend I begin to focus my efforts?

[jianwangcat]

What specific areas are we focusing our research efforts on in this project? (i.e. What are we researching on right now?) Additionally, what role does the product manager play in the research process?

[jianwangcat]

Is there a defined timeline for the launch of our product? If so, could you outline the major milestones and deadlines?

[edwardsarah]

What specific areas are we focusing our research efforts on in this project? (i.e. What are we researching on right now?) Additionally, what role does the product manager play in the research process?

Our current research focus is Phase 1 of the guide making process - Gather Examples Solo.
We need to understand if the guidance we've put together for Phase 1 of the guide-making process (Gathering Examples) effectively:

• teaches new PMs how to make a guide
• introduces them to GitHub so they can be successful on their projects at Hack for LA
  More specific questions we're hoping to answer can be found here: Guides: Meeting Agenda & Minutes #136 (comment)

The product manager prioritizes and delegates the work that needs to be done to make sure the research process can run smoothly. It's important to think strategically about what the aims of the research process are and plan meeting agendas to discuss the most important issues for moving the project forward.
While Rhoda will create the research plan and be responsible for recruiting her team (when we're in that part of the process), the PM will focus more on removing any roadblocks for UX Research and coming up with the structure of the pilot process (how often are we meeting with the new PMs? what are we hoping to cover in each session? when are we ready to start recruiting them? how do we need to prep the guide issues we've identified so they're ready for new PMs to use them?)

[edwardsarah]

What are the key responsibilities assigned to the product manager in this project, and where would you recommend I begin to focus my efforts?

The key thing is understanding where we are in our current efforts and proactively coming up with solutions to keep the project moving. For example:

• at the moment, the top priorities are (1)setting up the research structure and (2)transitioning the guides from CoPs to knowledgebase-content
• a major issue that we've discussed is the challenge of moving all of the guide issues without breaking any references to those issues in CoPs. As PM, it's my job to think through any problems that may arise during this process, understand what the limits of GitHub's capabilities are, and come up with solutions that we can discuss as a team. This way, after our next meeting, we can start working on next steps.

Other general responsibilities are:

• Setting agendas, running meetings, taking notes on discussions + decisions made, identifying new action items for future agendas (especially ones that should be made into new issues)
• Liaising with different members of the team: checking in with where they are with their work, identifying roadblocks and what needs to be raised at a new meeting. especially true if they aren't making much progress or don't speak up much at meetings.
• Recruitment (though not a high priority at the moment, we do not currently have a UX designer on the team)

At the most basic level, you can focus on the organizational aspects of being a PM. When you meet with Bonnie, make agendas and take minutes on your discussions. If action items come up, get into the habit of creating new issues for them, and make sure you understand how to track updates on issues using comments. I would also make sure that you really understand the different aspects of Phase 1. Not just the presentations, but also the issues and the content in the wiki, and how we're expecting people to use them.
Once you've found your footing with those, we can chat more about what efforts should be made so you can be the main PM on the research process.

[edwardsarah]

Can you provide an overview of the various stages in our project's lifecycle and identify which stage we're currently in? For instance, are we at the ideation, planning, customer survey, execution, or testing phase?

We use an agile approach to developing guidance, so we shift fairly often between planning, execution, and release of updates from week to week. If we're talking about the pilot program specifically, I would say we're in the planning phase of that project - our main focus is setting up the structure and research plan so we can get useful feedback from the PMs who will go through Phase 1 of creating a guide.

A more helpful way to think about the direction of the guides team may be to look at the How to Make a Guide: Overview slide deck. Once we've gotten feedback on the Phase 1 presentation decks and used that to improve the existing guidance, we will move on to testing and improving the Phase 2 presentation decks and so on, using feedback from each test to improve the guidance for future steps.

[edwardsarah]

Is there a defined timeline for the launch of our product? If so, could you outline the major milestones and deadlines?

Ideally, Q1 of 2024, but we don't currently set hard deadlines. As we plan the pilot, it may prove to be infeasible to launch in that timeline. Among other reasons, the nature of volunteer work and the availability of new PMs for testing and the constraints on the guides team may shift timelines.

Our first milestone is developing the research plan for the pilot.

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

On this comment #149 (comment) Sarah says

Our current research focus is Phase 1 of the guide making process - Gather Examples Solo.
We need to understand if the guidance we've put together for Phase 1 of the guide-making process (Gathering Examples) effectively:

• teaches new PMs how to make a guide

In order to understand this, you have to look at this guidance https://github.com/hackforla/guides/wiki/Guide-Resources#instructions-for-how-to-work-with-guides which will help each new volunteer at hack for LA to both learn how to use GitHub and see how different projects are structured, and connect them with people on existing projects, so that they can bring their "beginner mind" and ask questions that will enable knowledge transfer, that the new person will then document.

Our first cohort of participants will be PMs. After we improve the delivery of the workshops, then we will expand it out to all other practice areas.

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

Goals for the workshop delivery is to help people understand

1. how GitHub works
2. where projects are storing information
3. how their information storage affects the ability of the project and organization to reuse information
4. How to document findings
5. how to use GitHub to track work
6. limitations of slack and how to work around them
7. what to do when you are managing your own project.

[edwardsarah]

Creating the issue with the template shpwn seems pretty straightforward, to be clear, I am simply requesting PM admin access to the Website and VRMS projects through this issue?

@JesseTheCleric I put this as a bullet point assuming you'd get to this at the meeting, and Bonnie would be able to explain this, so sorry for the lack of clarity here.

For the website, you create the issue every time a new member joins the team, so that the website team can add them to our project page. Since this didn't get actioned, and we have another open issue for updating the page that the website team hasn't dealt with, I've just edited that original issue. No need to worry about it, other than keeping tabs on it to make sure it's been done.

For the VRMS issue, yes, you are requesting PM Admin access for new PMs on the team. I've got access already, but you, France, and Aditya will need to be added to the system. You can get the info you need for this (slack handle and email) from the Guides team roster. Once you've created the issue, add it to the team agenda so we can keep tabs on that as well.
I'm not sure if we have anyone on there that needs to be removed, so we should check in about this at our meeting today.

[fchan218]

what is the outline to use in the "comment" section when updating on an issue we are assigned to work on? to track our progress with the issue

[edwardsarah]

what is the outline to use in the "comment" section when updating on an issue we are assigned to work on? to track our progress with the issue

This can depend a little bit on the issue, but generally a good template to use is the one below:

1. Progress: "What is the current status of your project? What have you completed and what is left to do?"
2. Blockers: "Difficulties or errors encountered."
3. Availability: "How much time will you have this week to work on this issue?"
4. ETA: "When do you expect this issue to be completed?"
5. Pictures (if necessary): "Add any pictures that will help illustrate what you are working on."

Which you can also find in #91

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

1. Progress: I looked at this issue and Sarah has already answered the question.
2. Blockers: remembering to look at this before the meeting
3. Availability: none, ask France to check this question in future
4. ETA: n/A
5. Pictures (if necessary):

[ExperimentsInHonesty]

How to do an update

Instructions

1. Progress: "What is the current status of your project? What have you completed and what is left to do?"
2. Blockers: "Difficulties or errors encountered."
3. Availability: "How much time will you have this week to work on this issue?"
4. ETA: "When do you expect this issue to be completed?"
5. Pictures (if necessary): "Add any pictures that will help illustrate what you are working on."

Fill out the below and delete the top part (including this line)

1. Progress:
2. Blockers:
3. Availability:
4. ETA:
5. Pictures (if necessary):

[JesseTheCleric]

Need to address this comment on "How to move a Guide to a new Repo" sooner to avoid having to backtrack on issues
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y6uQUKRSwuJPdfwX_jWbOXWYRuBja9YGNbF3OEsjjOA/edit?disco=AAABRMZBQpo
"add step on renaming issues"

[fchan218]

Need to address this comment on "How to move a Guide to a new Repo" sooner to avoid having to backtrack on issues https://docs.google.com/document/d/1y6uQUKRSwuJPdfwX_jWbOXWYRuBja9YGNbF3OEsjjOA/edit?disco=AAABRMZBQpo "add step on renaming issues"

@JesseTheCleric I have updated the document. Here are the parts that I have updated:

• Step 2 to include 'resources/instructions' and 'projects to check' in the new description
• Step 7 to rename the issue title 'Create a Guide/Template:'
• Step 8 to include label 'link status: inaccessible document'
• Step 11 to only transfer relevant documents such as a guide draft