Posted by mikemiles86 on March 4, 2015 at 2:23pm
For those of you who were (or were not) at the Boston Drupal Meetup last night, here is a link to my presentation on proposals of changes to our meetups.
https://bit.ly/bosdrupalproposal
The purpose of this proposal was to jump start a discussion on what improvements we could implement to make the meetups more useful for everyone. Which I think it accomplished based on the discussions that were sparked last night.
Ed should be posting videos of the meetup, which could be helpful in hearing the discussions we had.
Let's continue the discussions. What are peoples thoughts?
Comments
How can OST support the group?
Mike, the presentation was very clear and the ideas sound helpful. Especially the new meeting format. In any group the more activity and relevant content seems the more fruitful.
As to the part about sponsors, how can OSTraining support your group? We often teach Beginner and Intermediate classes at public venues in Boston and are looking to build relationships with universities, government offices, and corporations who would benefit from internal, on-site training.
Our CEO Steve Burge and expert trainer Rod Martin have written the book Drupal 7 Explained and created the online video training course respectively. Would it help if they came to a meeting once a year and/or provided live, virtual training more frequently?
We have already started posting 1-minute Pro Tips for Site Builders on youtube if you want to let your members know about that free resource. http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLtaXuX0nEZk_SSiDMNoV0MaSvwnYxFaVv
I have a couple other ideas how we can help you cross promote the club as well. Would you be willing to call me sometime? Maybe there are other partners I could help you reach out to for sponsors too.
Humbly,
Nancy Lucas, M. Ed.
OST Live Event Coordinator
678-830-2168 x 704
Nancy@ostraining.com
www.ostraining.com
I really like the proposals.
I really like the proposals. Feel free to keep discussing/tweaking them here.
I think the next step is for folks to contact me if you have time and energy to execute on any of the proposals. For example, "I'd like to coordinate featured speakers for the beginning of the Tuesday meetup", "I'd like to organize the monthly Pub night", ...
Boston Drupal Scrum anyone?
Boy, I wish I had made it to this meetup. Great proposal Mike!
Of particular interest is the last slide on the calendar of proposed dates.
https://bit.ly/bosdrupalproposal
Notice if we were to move that "Call for ideas" meeting to the 4th Monday instead of the 3rd Monday, the entire month would resemble a monthly Scrum Sprint—in this case, the product that we would be "developing" would be the Boston Drupal Group itself.
Then, that Monday meeting could function both as a Sprint Retrospective and a Sprint Planning Meeting:
And if we started documenting those "Call for ideas" at a Wiki page at groups.drupal.org/boston (or wherever), we could start building a Product Backlog of ideas on how to build our Boston Drupal Group community—ideas which could be prioritized and moved a few at a time into a Sprint Backlog.
(Oooh, I'm getting tingles!)
Then those 1st Tuesday, 2nd Wednesday, and 3rd Thursday meetups could function not only as the specific session tracks they currently describe, but they could be approached each month with at least a nod to try and address a few of the highest-priority items in the current month's Boston Drupal Group Sprint Backlog. In other words, keep the proposed formats of each of those 3 Meetups, but allow the current month's Boston Drupal Group Sprint Backlog to inform the context of each Meetup. For example, if someone were planning to present a case study of a cool Drupal 8 site they just built, and they saw that one of the highest-priority items in the Boston Drupal Group Sprint Backlog was a request to explain to the group how to use Twig, they might adjust their presentation a little to spend more time on Twig.
"Twig" backlog item = done!
Finally, those Play Days and Happy Hours, and pretty much any casual meeting between any Boston Drupal Group members throughout the month, could function as ad-hoc variations of the "Daily Standup" so familiar to Scrum. At the very least, they could offer an opportunity to talk about how this month's Boston Drupal Group Sprint is going.
Or not, right? I mean, none of this "Meetups-as-Scrum" business would be obligatory for any Boston Drupal Group member. It would merely allow those of us who were interested, a way to use Scrum to coordinate our involvement with the Boston Drupal Group Meetups. Non-scrummers could carry on their involvement with the Boston Drupal Grop Meetups as usual—or even apply a different methodology for coordinating their efforts. Whatever works for whomever is involved.
Of course, regular Scrum practitioners will notice that my Scrum analogy stops short of (among other things) choosing a Scrum Master and a Product Owner for the Boston Drupal Group. After all, who would decide what should be considered for the Boston Drupal Group Product Backlog in the first place? Who would have the final say on what items should get moved into the Sprint Backlog? Who would be in charge of removing blocks to the Boston Drupal Group Meetups? And who would have the final say on what "done" would be?
In short, we all would: each to our own level of interest/ability/satisfaction.
Which is to say, whatever your skill level, come up with an idea, throw it into the Product Backlog, suggest it gets accepted into the next Sprint Backlog, and help set its priority. Maybe someone will include it in their presentation, maybe they won't, maybe you will pick it up and include it in your presentation, instead, or maybe it will just sit there and die a long slow death :oP. Whatever happens, at least everyone will have access to:
Hmmm,...measure group progress...predict group milestones...practice Scrum...distributed project management...the need for at least a community Product Backlog...Drupal as a framework...a city full of Drupal developers...
Are you thinking what I'm thinking? :o)
Better prioritize things first ;o)
P.S.
More about Scrum: http://scrummethodology.com/scrum-sprint/
Ron, I love the enthusiasm
Ron,
I love the enthusiasm and excitement. This is exactly the type of response I was hoping to get from my proposal.
There is a lot to figure out about what we could do to enhance the Boston Drupal Group. What are your thoughts on taking the enthusiasm of your response and turning it into a brief mini-session on the methodologies and roles that go into agile scrum? And then using the meetup as a real world example?
@mikemiles86
Can do!
...brief mini-session on the methodologies and roles that go into agile scrum? And then using the meetup as a real world example?
I'll plan on presenting it at the 1st Tuesday Meetup in April.
Hey, I just noticed I mis-numbered the 3 main meetups in my previous post. Must have been the excess adrenaline. Fixing now to: 1st Tuesday, 2nd Wednesday, 3rd Thursday.
Fantastic forward movement
I've been watching the videos from last year's BDG Meetups and I'm amazed how much more I understand from the videos than I was able to follow during the original presentation (http://drupalgroup.mit.edu/presentations/nic-discusses-new-feature-digit...). I'm convinced that having the meetup videos available will make a significant contribution to the goals here.*
I'll post separately about this Wednesday's meetup (http://drupalgroup.mit.edu/dg/content/front-end-drupal-march-11-2015), but I think it's relevant here. I'm gearing the new meetup toward site builders and front-end developers but the goals really have to do with maintainability of the sites we build and our efficiency in building them.
Kudos to Mike for initiating this discussion and to Ron for moving it so much further forward.
Ed
Ed Carlevale
Drupal Developer, MIT Energy Club
So in summary
it looks like we have 3 existing events with people managing them, 2 new events that need managers, and 1 planning role needed to manage the call for ideas.
* Drupal Meetup: Jeannie or Moshe
* Front end Drupal: Ed
* Drupal Nights: BioRaft
* Playdate: [unclaimed]
* Happy hour: [unclaimed]
* Call for ideas: [unclaimed]
Since I am not always in Boston I would be happy to manage the call for ideas part, maybe hold a Google Hangout, maybe coordinate between different events, etc. Jeannie/Moshe would it work for you to coordinate with me on agenda but continue to un the meetups?
Mike, are you willing to manage one of the remaining 2 events?
Chris, Indeed. I've already
Chris,
Indeed. I've already been talking with Jeannie & Moshe.
I agree that we should distribute the load and have different people lead up the different events, even pair up for a sense of redundancy and team work.
I'm happy to handle organizing the Playdates and I am already working on getting the first one set.
@mikemiles86
I don't think I will be able
I don't think I will be able to make this next meetup unfortunately but it looks like you guys are off to a good start.
It looks like we are still looking for someone to take on the Happy hour event. Any takers? Could be as simple as picking a bar around town and posting a message to meet up right?
Should I schedule a "Call for ideas" hangout for next month or do you think that just asking for people to signup via comments will work? It sounds like Ron might be interested in taking this on as well.
I am thinking it would help to have a master document that keeps track of who signs up, who presents, etc. Something like
https://docs.google.com/a/isovera.com/spreadsheets/d/1Ls6IHel5L1QcQ8TuSF...
This way we can even start planning ahead if we have lots of interest in presenting.