Team meeting today

[Valorie Zimmerman]

On Wed, Jun 20, 2012 at 12:19 PM, Marco Martin <notmart at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hi all,
> this is a very raw synopsis of the meeting, i hope we can now transform it in
> something very productive (i think the meeting especially the last part  was
> useful)

I found the meeting somewhere between great and excellent. It makes me
feel good that this team creates the public face of KDE software. :-)

> The meeting started from the realization that there is an 1% of cases where
> the discussion doesn't go well and can get people too emotional, making it not
> productive, for the project and for the morale.

Let me just point out that when there are lots of emotion, that means
that people CARE. One can learn to process that energy and use it to
expand the dialogue. Each of the participants can do that; we don't
need to rely on mediators, listowners, IRCops, etc.

I can tell from what I have read on this ML and in the IRC meeting
that this team is engaged, and really wants to move KDE into the
future. Kudos to all of you.

> Some cases of recent discussions where at first there was disagreement, but
> the discussion gone completely smoothly were analized (the 99% when things
> goes like they should), such as:
>
> http://old.nabble.com/RFC%3A-Removing-of-decorations-td33476065.html
> https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=302077

It was great to see people find and point out excellence like this.
Very inspiring.

> some points in common have been individuated:
>
> * we can see in those discussions the tone never escalated, even with
> disagreements, they look more like stimulating debates
> * when someone wants the mantainer to change his mind stays on exclusively
> technical points: raises concerns and arguments them, like needing an use case
> for window decoration for remote sessions, that weren't considered in the
> original decision
> * the maintainer proposes a third solution, balanced between the problem the
> original solution tries to address and the problem this causes. like waiting
> until a particular lightweight window decoration is here
> * The discussion always stays focused, in topic
>
> So that's how we want those discussions to happen.
> There can be done a series of recommendations in order to do so, and we can
> point to people when those aren't followed.

It is important to reject the culture of blame. Be tough on ideas,
gentle on people.

> note that those are just copied/pasted from points made over irc, so if they
> are incorrect, not completely understandable or if others missing feel free to
> correct:
>
> * we see that there is need to document more
> * especially if a discussion turns out to be recurring: document the reasons
> and point out to those
> * it doesn't need to be done for everything, otherwise becomes not
> maintainable with bad signal/noise ratio

My rule of thumb is that when you notice that "yet another
explanation" is getting boring or tiring, it's time to create a wiki
page about it, and either send the link or at least copy/paste from
there. Not only does it save you time, but it clarifies your thinking.

> * we have established guidelines on how to interact with each other
> * we don't want to blame community members for things which happened in the
> past
> * We concentrate too much on energy eaters, rather than on progress
> * we remind each other about our common goals if we see that a discussion goes
> in the wrong direction
> * there's a lack of trust  we need to address

The more you focus on your common goals, the less this will be an issue.

> * if anyone breaks the guidelines (whoever they are) breaks these we point it
> out, and not write a (more angry) reply which escalates
> * code reverting or being a bit invasive in non familiar areas should at least
> contact the ML or person affected
> * we need a list of component and maintainer
> * we respect maintainer decisions
> * and, "respect the elders!"
> * think about the bigger project, if an issue of disagreement risks of
> damaging/slowing down the project, is maybe the time to step back and say "i
> stil ldon't agree but i respect the decision"
> * same thing if the maintainer and/or several other maintainers of related
> components didn't change their mind: respect the decision even if you still
> disagree
>
> raw mammoth irc log: http://paste.opensuse.org/43938417 (not filtered from ot)
> --
> Marco Martin

Thanks Marco, and thanks everybody. You rock.

Valorie
-- 
http://about.me/valoriez