New platform for taking decisions for the core team

Categories: Development Created by Susanne Moog
The TYPO3 core team recently launched a new platform at <link https: decisions.typo3.org>decisions.typo3.org for taking decisions in the core team. During the core team meeting prior to the T3DD16 we decided that we needed a new way of taking decisions. Most of our communication takes place in various channels on Slack. It’s the nature of Slack that those conversations leave one's’ sight quickly and are hard to find at a later point in time. Additionally Slack excludes those who for a variety of reasons weren’t there when the conversation took part.  In addition the process on how taking decisions worked was quite murky even to the team it concerned and absolutely unclear to those on the outside. As we want to incorporate as many opinions and people as possible we came up with a complete new way of taking decisions. First of all we wanted to tightly couple discussion and decision making, document both parts and allow access to everybody while at the same time enforcing taking responsibility on one’s topics - so discussions don’t go stale and simply get abandoned without an actionable plan.

1. Discuss

The new process starts on <link http: decisions.typo3.org>decisions.typo3.org. That’s basically a pretty plain installation of discourse with only two categories at the moment: “Discuss Topics” and “Vote now”. In the “Discuss Topics” Category everyone is invited to create posts - but you have to adhere to the guidelines found at <link https: decisions.typo3.org t about-the-discuss-topics-category>decisions.typo3.org/t/about-the-discuss-topics-category  Discussions run for a pre-specified amount of time, so that we don’t get endless, no-results discussions. 

2. Vote

After the discussion phase the results have to be summarized and there has to be a core team member taking over the topic as responsible “mentor”. She or he has the responsibility to create a new post in the “Vote now” category where every core team member is invited to cast her or his vote on the topic and its’ facets. 

3. Publish

After the voting phase that same core team member has to close the votings, move the topic to the decision results category and publish it through appropriate channels. Core team members are allowed to vote by default but as we want to have more community engagement active community members can earn the right to vote by participating in discussions. The whole platform and process is as of now in beta stage, which means it can - and likely will - change after we get some experience with it. Any questions or remarks concerning the process and platform are welcome at <link https: decisions.typo3.org c site-feedback>decisions.typo3.org/c/site-feedback  P.S.: As the login works via LDAP (thanks to our amazing server team) it may be that you have to relogin once on typo3.org before your account starts working.