Technical Collaboration Guidance/Private planning

Ref: T123611

Transparency is an important value and principle in the Wikimedia movement, including software development. Transparency fosters collaboration and discussion, distributing responsibility for success to all of those working on a particular project. With this in mind, the stages of the product development process must be as transparent as possible in order to facilitate the process itself.

Documenting in public
There is nothing wrong with private discussions about ideas. Privacy is often important when an idea is at its infancy, so that the thought can be fully developed and presented with minimal distraction. That being said, once an idea or a discussion turns into a meeting or meetings for further pursuit, you have likely entered the product development process. It is important at this stage that if things are being written down, they begin to be shared in a public venue. In this sense, documentation can mean tentative plans, meeting agendas and notes, or early technical specifications.

At this point is important to begin public documentation because it is likely the product is now in stage one, Understand, where the problem that is being solved is defined and previous attempts to resolve the issue may need to be reviewed. Shifting or beginning work in a public space at this point allows for the opportunity for collaboration with volunteer developers and community members. These stakeholders likely have a definition of the problem and institutional memory of past attempts at resolution, and can make the product development process work much more smoothly from the start. To make things even easier, strive to document as much as you do not understand as you do, and put forward potential negatives and drawbacks for discussion as early as possible.

If documentation is starting at the second stage, the Concept stage, it's too late. There have been opportunities missed to understand circumstances around the problem that likely have not been entirely envisioned or defined, and these will become critical blockers upon community review.

Going public
If you have gone the route of private planning, your plan should also include when to go public, with the notion of "the sooner, the better."

Going public will probably need to mention the fact that the plan, or parts of it, have been prepared in private, and consider the need to discuss why this decision was made.