This was originally posted to the product working group mailling list, which consists of people in influencing positions within their employer’s OpenStack organisations. The group originally formed around the idea of Hidden Influencers, which made me think of us lying dormant somewhere, like Cthulhu lies dreaming at R’lyeh. Although with fewer tentacles. Anyway, on with the post, which I’ve modified slightly to add appropriate context:
There’s a been a bit of traffic on the operators list about a proposal for an Operations project that would aim to curate a collection of assets to support the operator community. To generate a set of “Frequently Required Solutions” if you will.
Whilst there is some disagreement on the thread about how to proceed, it is clear there’s definitely a need amongst operators for quite a bit of supporting code. As a group of product managers it behooves us to consider some of the larger questions like this and drive/enable/influence the community toward answering the questions that community considers a priority.
In just saying that, some more big questions are raised:
- What are the goals of this group?
- What strategy are we going to employ to achieve those goals?
- How do we gain acceptance from the wider community for this effort?
- How do we find an effective mechanism for product management to occur?
and no doubt there are more.
Answering these questions it’s not as “easy” as starting a project, but it’s necessary if this group wants to contribute in any collective or concerted fashion.
If we’re going to have a mid-cycle meetup to bootstrap a product management group or forum, lets set some targets for what we want to achieve there, and lets set them well in advance. For me, the priority is establishing the basic existential motivations for this group:
- Why are we here? (Purpose, Goals)
- What are we going to do about it? (Strategy)
Anything more than that is a bonus, and if we can agree these prior to the meetup, so much the better. However without these basics, any work in the detail doesn’t validate the existence of this group as anything more than just a mailing list.
For those who aren’t on, or aren’t aware of the product group mailling list: if you’re in a position of influence or control of your employer’s OpenStack direction think about joining up. We’re going to be looking at some pretty fundamental questions about how OpenStack will move forward as it progresses further along the hype cycle.
