Community Engagement (Product)/Collaboration process/Draft

This methodology is a very early stage draft attempting to support and define product process with communities in a way that supports the WMF Engineering Process. As the Engineering Process is also still a draft, please note that this is very early stage and subject to changes. Please provide feedback!

This draft currently attempts to outline the communications and methods in each step of the product development process which involves Community Liaison activities with communities.

Engineering Process Proposal (in development)
Outlining what gets done and when:
 * WMF Engineering Process Proposal
 * Software Development Concepts
 * Outline of current WMF Engineering Processes

Design and Development Principles (in development)
Outlining the high-level fundamentals that product teams operate by.
 * Design and development principles

Introduction and Concept
This phase presents and initially describes the impetus and logic behind any product or individual feature. During this phase, reasoning behind the feature must be defined, communication surrounding scope with users.

Tools and methods used
The following tools may be used in this phase:


 * MediaWiki Product Page (must have)
 * Newsletter/Tech News articles (maybe)
 * Setting up for product-specific news features (depends)
 * Community Consultation with clearly defined parameters (maybe)
 * Targeted sitenotice for notifications (maybe)
 * Notifications in any product-related official communication channels (must have; TBD)
 * Coordination with Design Research to get users signed up for testing

Communications
The following information must be presented during this phase:
 * Who is this product intended for? (All users? All editors? New editors?)
 * What problem does this solve?/Why is this feature needed?
 * Include analysis of past demand for the product.
 * Include supporting data/information/strategic ideas
 * ”What this is not”
 * Where - Commons? Wikipedias? All RtL language projects?
 * When Is there a timeframe commitment to launching this? Is there a blocker (does this need to be accomplished before moving onto other projects) Is this a major project that will take a few years to complete?
 * How Are there technical constraints? Does this need to function in a particular way?
 * Is this product intended to change, break or fix any workflows?

Prototype and Review
(as stated in the Product Development Process, "Early version of feature (usually in a staging environment as described below) is tested with end-users.  Early feedback is then incorporated into subsequent designs of the feature."

Interested users may include more adventurous, skeptical, or technical users. All users who may be affected by a product should be notified about this stage of the process and where to engage, but may not wish to be involved.

Tools and methods used

 * Targeted Talk Page messages (maybe)
 * Pointing to Product Feature Pages
 * Pointing to Design Research
 * Newsletters and Tech portal updates (must have)
 * Product Talk Page conversations
 * Structuring feedback with Product team
 * (feedback standardization process TBD)
 * Directing users to Design Research (must have)
 * Watchlist notifications (maybe)
 * Beta Feature notification (Need to build)
 * General notification
 * Guided Tour (maybe)

Communications

 * Is the feedback or request within scope of this project?
 * Checks across teams for legal/volunteer team issues (does it conflict with admin tools?)
 * Does this product inadvertently break or fix any workflows? (unintended consequences)

Tools/Methodologies

 * Begin broad notification for all users who will be affected by product
 * Site notice/CentralAuth or other broad-scale notification
 * Guided Tour/screenshots/related information creation for launch
 * Troubleshooting

Communications

 * Notification of known launch dates
 * Watching for for last minute functionality and legal concerns
 * "What are the top 10 questions about the launch?"
 * Notification to Communications Dept for launch

Tools/Methodologies

 * Product pages on MediaWiki for ongoing communication
 * Collaboration with Communications Dept
 * Working with Release Engineering to ensure timeframes
 * Site Notices/Central Auth
 * Guided Tours

Communications

 * Gauging and parsing user feedback
 * Base numbers of adoption rates, increased usage, faster load time (what’s working?)