Starting a new task force

Hey, folks. I've headed up a few task forces for the CG so far. I'm 
co-leading a new one, and the other lead asked about what we need to do 
to get started. I thought I'd share the list here. Maybe we should have 
a similar list somewhere on GitHub...? Also, is there anything I missed?

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0. Create and manage a GitHub repository. We use GitHub issues and 
GitHub Pages a lot for SWICG, and we have about one repo per task force.

1. Convene and chair meetings. Just get them on the schedule, make sure 
interested parties know about them, put together the agenda, and chair 
the discussion.

2. Assemble user stories. I don't think this is formal, but it's a big 
part of what I try to start with. One GitHub issue per user story, with 
an appropriate label ("user story"). User stories in the format "As a 
<persona>, I want to <action>, so that <benefit>." I also find it useful 
to add some out-of-scope stories to clarify boundaries -- what's outside 
of our scope.

3. An explainer. Explainers are the W3C way of showing the state of 
play. https://w3ctag.github.io/explainer-explainer/ I think we've been 
doing these as README.md files. Just listing out the user stories to 
describe the problem, who is heading up the task force, links to any 
documents or code that illustrated the work, expected deliverables, and 
a description of the top 2-3 candidate solutions.

4. A report. This is usually the big deliverable on any SocialCG task 
force. https://www.w3.org/community/reports/reqs/ TF lead needs to 
identify an editor, or edit directly. Make a first draft with ReSpec 
http://respec.org/ and start editing. Use GitHub issues and PRs to 
manage feedback, edits, etc. At some point, submit to the CG for broader 
review; it will move on to becoming a draft report and then a published 
report.

5. Reference implementations and testing. It's great to get these things 
implemented and tested. Gold standard is two independent publishers and 
two independent consumers. Having a reference implementations makes 
testing easier. An automated or semi-automated test suite helps too.

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Evan

Received on Tuesday, 17 June 2025 18:42:27 UTC