Handbook/Working Process
From Open Knowledge Foundation
< Handbook
This document provides various suggestions on how to run a working process week to week and month to month. The suggestions here are not obligatory and individuals and projects may choose to organize things however they wish.
Contents |
A Simple Approach to Planning
This is very crudely modelled on agile, 'sprint', methodology in software though it can be used whatever project we are on.
Principles
- Organize at 2 (possibly 3) levels: topics, user stories, tasks
- Do not plan too far ahead (1-2 month horizon max) -- things change!
- Estimate work involved (however crudely) -- without this planning is impossible (and stress will ensue!)
- Keep it lightweight -- if any of this gets burdensome drop it (at a minimum you need tasks + estimation!)
Process
- Create high level work areas and associated user stories (where relevant)
- This helps give some overall direction
- Assign a crude value between 1-100 to each user story and each topic
- Template sheet for this in Tasks and Todos Template (Priorities and Overview sheet)
- Have a backlog of tasks (see template spreadsheet)
- Try and relate these to top level topics
- Must be estimated (however imperfectly) - do this in days (e.g. 2d or 2-4d ...)
- Select a small set of these tasks to be your active tasks
- In general would suggest never having more than 4-6 tasks active at one time
- Don't plan very far ahead
- Review and revise
- What worked, what didn't
- What can be improved
User Stories
User stories are good because they force us to think
- In terms of the problem (rather than the solution)
- non-technical form
- in a form an average user or collaborator could understand and relate to
Coordination in Teams
Standups
Standups are ultra-short catchup and coordination meetings
- once a day for 5-15m
- Each person says: What you did yesterday, what you are doing today, anything you are blocked on (and need help with)
- Must be kept strictly to time
- If some matter comes up that needs further discussion among team members it should go to a separate meeting outside of the Standup
- Can be less for less frequent for less active teams
Iterations
Iterations (aka sprints) are a way to organize work into convenient chunks.
- Split work chunks into 'sprints' or 'iterations' of 2-4 weeks in length
- we suggest 2 week as a common length at the Foundation
- Have a planning meeting at the start of each iteration
- Review previous iteration
- Identify highest value topics and user stories
- Identify associated tasks and estimate
- Team members select tasks (avoid assigning -- tasks should be chosen not given)
- Check that estimated time for tasks <= total time available for each team member
Updates
Tips for updates on your notebook post:
- Add 'updates' category
- Link to any relevant items (e.g. a project, event etc) -- both for convenience and SEO
- Link to relevant tickets or todo items
- (Bonus points) Add crude day estimates indicating how much time (in days) you plan to allocate to each item over the next week e.g. (2d)
- This way one can quickly see if one is over-committed for the coming week
But also, remember it's more important to have a notebook post up than for it to be perfect so if any of this becomes too burdensome -- just drop it!
