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Last year, the DLF made some changes in our process. We started expanding our core team with new volunteers and adopted a different approach to decision making. That has benefited us in several ways, bringing fresh ideas and insights into our meetings and helping us make plans for the future.
Unfortunately, we're still failing to meet community expectations in two critical areas: execution and communication. Of the several projects we've decided on, too many have stalled or have yet to get off the ground. Most people have no idea what those projects are or what we're planning. Most of the responsibility for the latter falls on my shoulders, but the entire team shares responsibility for the former.
This isn't a new revelation. We've seen the criticisms and complaints and have known we need to do better. We've batted around ideas on how we could improve, but always kept coming back to, "we need more people" or "we need more funding".
Well, no more. A plan for potentially turning things around has come together over the past few weeks. It started with a single conversation in early October, culminated in our November monthly meeting last week, and was finalized today.
Effective today, Razvan Nitu is no longer a Pull Request/Issue manager. He's now the DLF Project Coordinator. In short, he will be responsible for keeping track of the projects we've decided on, ensuring that they get off the ground and that forward progress is maintained. For example, he'll maintain periodic contact with the people responsible for each project so he can ensure they have the resources they need, he can understand the current state of the project, he can be prepared to take the necessary steps to keep the project going if the person is unable to continue for any reason, and he can know in advance if something is delayed so that I can make an announcement.
He'll also coordinate with me in twice monthly meetings, and I will post a monthly report here in the forums. I expect the first report to come in late December, and subsequent reports will come on the same date each month after.
You'll also be able to see everything Razvan's tracking on the project tracker:
https://github.com/orgs/dlang/projects
Most of what's there at the time I'm writing this will be deleted. We'll keep the Priority Issues tracker, and you'll initially see two others: one where Razvan keeps track of projects on his radar, and one where I update what I'm working on.
I had a meeting with Razvan today and we agreed on a handful of active projects that he's going to start tracking now. We're starting small and will expand the list over time as he establishes and better defines the role.
The downside to this is that Dennis will be our only paid Pull Request/Issue manager for the time being. However, I am actively working to secure enough funding to bring someone in to fill the role.
This is one of several steps we're taking in the coming months to up our game. In the realm of communication, I have some changes planned for the website that will bring more clarity regarding our future plans and transparency on our funding situation.
Stay tuned!
