Hi all this is the opening for a discussion of how to improve workflow and efficiency for the VDG without for that matter rail-roading work on coming features and ideas. I'm posting this not only to get input and feedback but to get some volunteers.

The Problem
We have a large and active community, this is awesome. The downside is that it creates a situation where some times great ideas gets lost as many of us can't keep up with the threads, finding the right devs and try to focus work. Work tends to be very very powerful in terms of both quantity and quality at the initial stages but since I can't keep up with the pace of the forums the contacts with the devs fall behind and the design is often stuck in that initial stage meaning it can be kind of shallow (no drill down into various features and design ideas).
This can leave many of you feeling neglected (which is the really really bad part) and it can create a problem realizing the designs into finished apps and products (not as bad but still bad).

The Proposal
My suggestion is organization work - first off creating Project Leads, people from the Core Group who together with the Dev in charge of the project are defined "leads" for ideas meaning they try to keep the work on track and helping out so that everyone providing feed back can feel like they are heard in discussions. When the active dev for a project has been chosen or is appearent that person get a "Project Lead" stamp or something so we can all hear what he or she says about it (since they are after all the person who need to implement what ever is coming out and as such we need to know what that person thinks is possible).
Second we institute "Thread Wranglers" - people who's job it is to work as part debate-moderators, part design moderators and part contact handlers who can make sure that the right dev is pinged, that projects get "Project Leads" and that if there is some major issue this become appearent.
Third we split threads into "Initial Work" and "Crunch Work" - essentially the first thread on a subject is ment for brainstorming, finding an overall idea that works where we can just go nuts suggesting mockups and ideas. When the Project Leads or Thread Wranglers think the thread has reached a point where we have come to somewhat of an agreement that thread is locked and a second thread is started with the prefix [Crunch] for example. The case and the goal as stated in the first thread is posted as a message and from then on we work with that decided goal as a vision trying to refine the work as much as possible.

example:
Jane posts "[Help wanted] For Awesome RSS Applet" - where in she posts about her RSS applet and what design help she needs and wants. The discussion begin. At some point a Thread Wrangler spotting the thread posts "Hi I'm the thread wrangler of this thread - will try to find Project Lead to work with Jane who is the dev". When the Project lead from the core group is picked that person will announce him or herself and from there on the ideal is that these three people will try to steer the discussion in the right direction.
After a while and a ton of shallow mockups are posted - the Project Leads, Jane and [Core Group Member] - says "Ok we are more or less in agreement here about what mockups and goals we're going with - here is a link to the new thread where we will try to drill down and really fix that design. This thread is now locked.".
The new thread "[Design Crunch] Awesome RSS Applet" is opened, if its slow starting the Project Leads or Thread Wrangler sends emails to people in the former thread telling them of the new one. The new thread starts with a stated goal, the chosen mockups from the last thread and is made for drill down design to perfect the design up until that point. When the Dev and Project Lead thinks that its in workable shape and that the Awesome RSS Applets design is sorted the final thread is locked, renamed as "Done" and we all pat ourselves on the back in a great fashion

The Final
So what do you boys and girls think? Is this a workable idea? Will it help? And most importantly - does anyone feel like taking part in this? (all it demands is that you are 1) a nice person 2) kind and considerate 3) with an interest in design and people)

+1

Yup, makes sense to me!
Though I wouldn't strictly say that the project lead has to be from the "core" group (also there is no real definition of who belongs to that group anyway). I'd say it has to be someone who has been around for a while, but that's it.

Good point Thomas - will leave this up for a week to try to get responses and see what people think.

If anyone (and like Thomas emphasized "ANYONE") wants to do project lead stuff or thread wrangling - holler!

This would require deeper research, but it sounds as if you want to use a bugtracker (bugs.kde.org) for this?

You can grant ppl. different permissions, tag tasks as "version: initial" or "version: crunch" or alternatively open a new task and close the "initial" one as duplicate and ultimately "close" a task as fixed or wontfix.

You also get an oversight on open tasks.

Not so cool about bugzilla is
a) no inline image posting (at least I think so)
b) flat hierarchy (not much different from the forum, but bugzilla also doesn't have pages)

luebking wrote:This would require deeper research, but it sounds as if you want to use a bugtracker (bugs.kde.org) for this?

A bug tracker is not a project manager. I'd say if we use a tool to support our work, it would be Kanboard. That is much easier to use than Bugzilla and has everything we need.

I would rather prefer to stay within the forums structure and Kanban board - but with a structure within the forums and community to gain some "who does what and where" but still keep it rolling in the same area.

Jens, thanks for this initiative!

Personally I think we need better structures, at least for me this would be extremely beneficial. And as I believe in empirical data: I think we should give your suggestion a go. We can still learn and improve, but we definitely need to start experimenting.

To follow your call for volunteers: I could imagine to act as an UX Project Lead in a very few projects.

Now - first feedback on your idea - as I realistically cannot follow the forum, my problem would be: How would I get to know about an interesting project?

An easy idea could be to introduce a mailing list or reanimate your Monday Report to give a brief summary about which projects currently need what kind of support. This would allow me to spot the interesting stuff.

Defining the kind of support needed is essential and should perhaps even be an explicit very first step, before your "Initial Work" phase. Here we need to find out if the current support needed is rather on understanding users or making icons (or whatever else). I am convinced that a lot of projects will not be able to phrase the "real question". They join us, because they feel they can do better UX wise, but - as this is a forum - they will feel to need to ask some question and do so. If we just answer that question, I fear energy could be invested more wisely.

How the best support for a project can look like, depends on many factors - so, e.g. I should definitely not be UX Project Lead in a project where icon design is actually needed So this would be a kind of a "Understanding Needs" phase - or, perhaps better, a "Defining Real Project Goal(s)" phase.

Perhaps we can even make this step more formal and explicit in a way that a cooperation with a project starts with them saying: "We want to do better UX wise, please support us!". Then they could get some questionnaire, that allows us to understand better what the project is, who is active with which motivation, who uses the program, what feedback they get, what problems are known, what ideas and questions they have... Based on this information we can, together with the "Def in Charge" create a strategy how the project can be improved best and identify appropriate people that then start "correct" "Initial Work" and guide the crowd creation processes.

Also I think this would be a perfect setting for mentored projects. So we could introduce senior and junior kind of position, allowing esp. UX students to gather supported experiences in real world projects. This would multiply the effect of our more experienced team members and help us to get more work done overall.

bjoernbalazs wrote:How the best support for a project can look like, depends on many factors - so, e.g. I should definitely not be UX Project Lead in a project where icon design is actually needed So this would be a kind of a "Understanding Needs" phase - or, perhaps better, a "Defining Real Project Goal(s)" phase.

Perhaps we can even make this step more formal and explicit in a way that a cooperation with a project starts with them saying: "We want to do better UX wise, please support us!". Then they could get some questionnaire, that allows us to understand better what the project is, who is active with which motivation, who uses the program, what feedback they get, what problems are known, what ideas and questions they have... Based on this information we can, together with the "Def in Charge" create a strategy how the project can be improved best and identify appropriate people that then start "correct" "Initial Work" and guide the crowd creation processes.

Sounds very useful!

Also I think this would be a perfect setting for mentored projects. So we could introduce senior and junior kind of position, allowing esp. UX students to gather supported experiences in real world projects. This would multiply the effect of our more experienced team members and help us to get more work done overall.

And I especially like this part!

Pushing the topic back to top... Any more thoughts? How should we proceed?

Well I can volunteer to be a Thread Wrangler. Unfortunately my English skills are somewhat lacking, but I think it's a great opportunity to improve them. Of course if it is not a problem

lucas wrote:Well I can volunteer to be a Thread Wrangler. Unfortunately my English skills are somewhat lacking, but I think it's a great opportunity to improve them. Of course if it is not a problem

Great that you're stepping up!
Limited English skills should never keep you from contribzting to the VDG. If you fear at some point that there might be a misunderstanding due to language problems, feel free to ask any of us to step in (after all, you'll have to be in close communication with the rest of the VDG anyway).

colomar wrote: Great that you're stepping up! Limited English skills should never keep you from contribzting to the VDG. If you fear at some point that there might be a misunderstanding due to language problems, feel free to ask any of us to step in (after all, you'll have to be in close communication with the rest of the VDG anyway).

Thank you for your support Just one question though. What is the prefered way of communication in VDG? IRC, forum or maybe something else? I ask because I would like to discuss a few things with the rest of the group.

lucas wrote:Thank you for your support Just one question though. What is the prefered way of communication in VDG? IRC, forum or maybe something else? I ask because I would like to discuss a few things with the rest of the group.

Well, to be honest, you've found our Achilles' heel there: There isn't really a properly established public communication channel yet. We do have our IRC channel #kde-vdg but you won't necessarily always find many people there. It's likely that those who are there may alert others who are not there to go there, though, so it's certainly a good starting point.

colomar wrote:Well, to be honest, you've found our Achilles' heel there: There isn't really a properly established public communication channel yet. We do have our IRC channel #kde-vdg but you won't necessarily always find many people there. It's likely that those who are there may alert others who are not there to go there, though, so it's certainly a good starting point.

Thank you for the info, I will take a look