Working Group Task Force

Owned by Mic Bowman
Last updated: Oct 23, 2019

Participants


Questions

  • What is the role of working groups given the ongoing maturation of projects in HL?
    • Prescriptive: the working groups prescribe direction for projects
    • Descriptive: working groups generalize what is already being done in the projects
    • Gap analysis: identify "what's missing" from the current projects
    • Integration analysis: identify "common components" that could be extracted
    • Emerging trends-vision: Provide a platform for "vision" of what is out there in the field. New ideas from members. Reports from influential conferences/meetings
    • Platform for launch: we had Indy/Aries launched from ID WG, Caliper from PSWG 
  • How can working groups provide appropriate "recompense" for participation? Influence, notoriety, creativity, business value?
  • How else can we motivate (or at least reduce the barrier) to participation?
  • What is the process for report outs? Historically, the white paper, architecture, and performance working groups completed documents that were brought to the TSC for final review and approval. This seems like a reasonable model and should be standardized.

Proposals

  1. (deprecated) Proposal 1: Working groups should be scoped to a specific task or problem rather than a general area.
  2. (deprecated) Proposal 2: Working groups should not be required to produce specific work-products.
  3. Proposal 3: Working groups should be dropped.
  4. Proposal 4: Formalize "task force" as a task-specific group with limited scope and fixed time to complete.
  5. Proposal 5: A task-force will be required to create a "proposal" and the TSC must approve the proposal.
  6. Proposal 6: The task-force leader will be required to report on completion of deliverables.
  7. Proposal 7: A task-force that requires additional time, must request an extension from the TSC.
  8. Proposal 8: Existing working groups will be converted into a technology focused SIG.

Note that the issue of formalizing structure of the SIG is outside the scope of this task force. We do, however, recommend that technology focused SIGs go through a similar proposal process that is ratified by the TSC. 

Notes

Learning materials working group provides a very good example of the challenges with the current working group structure. Those participating in the working group often sit "outside" of the projects themselves. As a result, participation (specifically participation from the projects) is very difficult. 

There is a fairly strong sense that the working groups should be focused on the "glue" between projects.

See discussion here: https://chat.hyperledger.org/channel/tsc?msg=z9YZfKDF9a5Et6CEr