Wikimedia Technology/Goals/2020-21 Q4

Technology Department Team Goals and Status for Q4 FY20/21 in support of the  Medium Term Plan (MTP) Priorities and the Annual Plan for FY20/21



MTP-Y2: Platform Evolution - Evolutionary architecture
Objective Manager: Corey Floyd

Objective
Software platforms with integrated machine learning, rich media, and structured data components, and associated tooling for internal and external development and reuse of code and content.

Key Results
Key Results Manager: Kate Chapman
 * KR1 Reached level 3 of the Architecture Maturity Model (AMM) for at least 85% of capabilities by Q4 (https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Architecture_Team/Maturity_model)


 * KR2 Engineers have an improved understanding of current architecture and target architecture, enabled by the outputs of reaching level 3 for the AMM Architecture Development capability, "Gap analysis, modeling and iterative strategy for reaching a target architecture are completed”, measured quantitatively through surveys in Q1, Q2 and Q4.


 * KR3 Four (4) new service components in production delivering new capabilities, enabling and adopting industry standard best practices for architecture, engineering and deployment, allowing for the mitigation of risks for both development teams and operational stakeholders, building trust in our development processes. 1 service in by end of Q2, 2 by end of Q3, and 4 by end of Q4.



MTP-Y2: Platform Evolution - Content Integrity
Objective Manager: Leila Zia

Objective
The Wikimedia movement has the tools and knowledge to identify and respond to abuse, misinformation, and disinformation campaigns, in order to more efficiently and effectively improve the quality of content, defend the projects and retain the public’s trust.

Key Results
Key Result Manager: Leila Zia
 * KR1: Develop 1 model to identify misinformation (by Q3) and deliver 4 milestones towards 1 model to understand the diffusion of content on the Wikimedia projects (by Q4).

Key Result Manager: Chris Albon
 * KR2: Complete 4 product integrations (e.g. link recommendations) of internally built machine learning models and services for improving content integrity.

Key Result Manager: Leila Zia
 * KR3: Coordinate and report quarterly on the disinformation activities across teams, establish a community support forum (by Q3), and participate in 10 external relationships (by Q4) including academia and industry partners.



ERF-Y2: Technology Dept - Front Line Defenses
Objective Manager: Mark Bergsma

Objective
Our infrastructure and data are staffed, secured and provisioned appropriately in each area to successfully prevent or handle malicious attacks, the unavailability of one system component, or the unavailability of a staff member.

Key Results
Key Result Manager: Faidon Liambotis
 * KR1: We will plan (by end of Q3), build (Q4) a second EU data center, to better serve EMEA users (by end of FY21-22 Q1).

Key Result Manager: Mark Bergsma
 * KR2: The number of staff members solely responsible for a system or piece of software in production is reduced by 50%, from 8 to 4, by end of Q4.

Key Result Manager:John Bennett
 * Objective: Implement a threat identification and risk treatment program (Q1) and deploy effective countermeasures for the top 2 threats and risks per quarter thereafter.



ERF-Y2: Technology Dept - Technical Community Building
Objective Manager: Birgit Müller

Objective
Our technical community is thriving and has a clear, consistent means to discover, build, and deploy applications that support community workflows, invent new forms of content creation and consumption, and leverage Wikimedia's APIs and data beyond the core wiki experience.

Key Results
Key Results Manager: Birgit Müller
 * KR1: Communities find the tools that they need through the new Toolhub catalog system (technical plan Q1, working prototype Q2, MVP Q4), and developers create more diverse solutions using a user-extensible, container-based default deployment process (working prototype Q3, running at least 1 workflow by Q4) in Toolforge.


 * KR2: A 10% increase in number of tool maintainers (4% by end of Q2) speaks to a vibrant ecosystem of technical contributors, supported by an iterative model and practice of community and capacity building (Q1 draft, Q4 MVP) which has been refined through 3 initiatives in focused outreach to technical communities (Q1-Q4).
 * Objective: Develop an iterative model and practice of technical community and capacity building
 * * Refine strategy and concept
 * Objective: Run 3 initiatives in focused outreach to new and existing technical communities
 * * Design and plan Outreachy round 21 with a focus on data science and engineering projects
 * Objective: Increase visibility & knowledge of technical contributions, services and consumers across the Wikimedia ecosystem
 * * Design and conduct the 2020 Coolest Tool Award jointly with community (Q1-Q2)


 * KR3: KR3: An organization strategy for key technical documents informs a continuing roadmap based on a process of drafts (Q1) refined by consultation with staff (Q2) and community input (Q3) and a prototype of a single entry point to lower barriers finding existing documentation (Q4).



ERF-Y2: Technology Dept - Production Quality
Objective Manager: Erika Bjune

Objective
Engineering teams at WMF have a shared understanding of development velocity, production health, and code quality, and they develop commitments and workflows for improving overall code health.

Key Results
Key Result Manager: Mark Bergsma
 * KR1: Evangelize, implement tooling for (by end of Q3) and define and implement Service Level Objectives (SLO) and Error Budgets for our top 10 services and systems (Q4: 2 services; 2021-22 Q1: 4 services; 2021-22 Q2: 4 services) and report and iterate on them with product owners on a quarterly basis to optimize the balance of speed of innovation and reliability.

Key Result Manager: Greg Grossmeier
 * KR2: Educate teams on and define Code Health Objectives for our production-deployed code repositories (20% in Q1, 40% in Q2, 70% in Q3, 100% in Q4) and report and iterate on them with code owners on a quarterly basis.

Key Result Manager: Greg Grossmeier
 * KR3: Evaluate and shepherd a consultation and best practices recommendations on a potential move to GitLab for code review by the end of Q2. In parallel, 70% of Wikimedia developed application layer production service traffic is served by the Deployment Pipeline in Q3 and 95% by Q4.