Request for agenda item on project planning and operating model

Silver team, I would like to see “project planning and taskforce operating model” as an item on our agenda for Tuesday. 

When working on the Silver Design Plan [1] my expectation was that we would treat Silver as a product development project, with tasks and milestones. I expected a collaborative operating model, with taskforce members and partners having clear roles and responsibilities for different tasks and milestones. In other words, we would create Silver as a product, following a product development methodology, with project planning and a product development team. 

My impression so far is that we are following a more standard working group model, with some long-term planning, tasks (actions) defined and assigned at weekly meetings, and minimal delegation of responsibilities among task force members and partners.

If we continue to use the current project planning and operating model I am concerned that we may have chosen the wrong process to follow for Silver. A design-driven process with multiple activities and lots of collaboration needs detailed planning and a coordinated team effort—especially one like Silver, that does not have a dedicated product development team.

I raised the topic of “roles and responsibilities” several times at our face-to-face meeting, but my impression is that my concerns are not shared with others on the taskforce. I was reassured that the process might be different from what I was accustomed to as someone relatively new to W3C activities, but that it would be effective in making progress.

As someone who was closely involved with creating the Silver Design Plan, I wanted to be sure those involved and affected are aware that I am not confident we can achieve the objectives of the Silver Design Plan without a plan and operating model that looks more like one used in product development. I believe we can make progress with the current operating model, but we might want to revisit the plan and scale back on some of the activities if we continue using this model.

Thanks,
Sarah

[1] https://www.w3.org/WAI/GL/task-forces/silver/wiki/Design_Plan_for_Silver


Sarah Horton
UX Strategy Lead
The Paciello Group
603 252-6052 mobile

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Received on Monday, 9 January 2017 11:00:53 UTC