Dear all,
Given we have quite a few topics to discuss at the next board meeting on the 12th June (details to follow) I thought I would discuss this one via the list rather than bring it to an already busy meeting.
It has already been agreed to circulate minutes from the main MPB board meetings but what about the prioritisation meeting too?
There are several reasons why this transparency might be helpful. Firstly it will hopefully give others examples of the sorts of projects we are doing. After our discussion around the Vesuvio epic I’m keen to encourage other instruments/science
areas that are sticking to very old versions of Mantid to put in Epics to move them forward. Not only would the epic cover the making it work bit but also include relevant automated testing for fundamental parts of their workflow. Whilst this wouldn’t complete
negate the need for Beta testing at regular intervals it would ensure we are more likely to catch any major breaking changes whilst we are developing. Although Epics are available through the JIRA board only a limited number of people have access to this and
so most will not know what we’re doing.
Another reason is to do with transparency around our resources. One of my team leads would like to be able to reference the decisions the board are making when explaining where and why resources in that sub-team are being used the way they
are. It has not been a problem so far but they foresee they may need to do this and being able to refer to the decision making would be helpful.
The final reason for this transparency is providing confidence in the process. We reached a milestone at the last prioritisation meeting. The Robust Bragg peak search algorithms Epic is the first one to have gone through the whole process
with board oversight. Epics are moving and not stagnating (on the whole). It would be good to be able to show this to make others more confident about putting forward Epics.
If we do decide to make minutes available we probably will need to decide how and when we do this. We probably need to ensure that Epic Owners and Stakeholders receive information first before making it more widely available. I think it
will cause a lot of upset if an Epic Owner finds out we’re not progressing with their Epic via the minutes rather than reaching out to them personally.
I’d be interested in your thoughts on this one.
Thanks
Sarah
Sarah Foxley
Mantid Team Lead and Engineering Manager
Science and Technology Facilities Council
Phone – 01235 446938
She/Her/Hers
