How have the first 7 months of the official CC program gone? (request for input!)

Working Groups Core Contributors
1

Hi Core Contributors,

Over the past two months, the Core Contributor administration team (myself, Xavier, and Dean) have been working to collect feedback on the first 8 months of the Core Contributor program to help it grow and improve over the next 6-8 months.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to talk to us. For those of you who didn’t get a chance, I’d love if you could fill out a very quick, 3-question survey.

I’d like to summarize some common themes from our interviews, and propose how to proceed in addressing those. Overall, people reported…

  1. Confusion and inconsistencies in what counted as Core Contributor work
  2. Not knowing where to find additional Core Contributor work
  3. Angst about counting hours, and feelings of failure when not hitting 20h/month
  4. Curiosity about the 20h/month commitment, especially as it pertains to smaller organizations where 20h/month represents a much greater percentage of organization time
  5. Desire for a better introduction to the Core Contributor program, including information on ceremonies, what types of work count for CC hours, and program expectations
  6. Wanting better forums for providing and receiving positive feedback and congratulations for successes

Here are some ways we’ll be addressing each of the above items:

  1. We’ll be kicking off an effort to have all Core Contributors give input on what they do and do not consider to be Core Contributor-type work. Please look for this survey in your email inbox and on these forums in early December.
  2. Discoverability of additional CC work is important. After the final determination of what is/isn’t CC work, we’ll revisit how to make this better.
  3. Two main things to note about the 20h/month:

  • We’ve already updated text in Listaflow to indicate that hours reporting is just “best guess”. Don’t agonize over this or make it a blocker. Personally, I estimate in half-day chunks to make things easy for me.

  • Better advertisement of the fact that we consider the 20h/month commitment to be an average over six months. We understand that life and big work things come up from time to time. Our process will be to, every June and December (post-Open edX named release) to take a look at the 6-month average of every CC and reach out to those who are under their commitment to inquire about their work and status - you will never be immediately kicked out.

  1. We’ll be beginning an effort to reach out to the leadership teams of all companies participating in the Core Contributor program to discuss the 20h/month commitment. It will be important to ensure that all groups are on the same page here. If you are a leader of a company participating in the CC program and want to be included in this, please reach out to me.

  2. A better introduction to the CC program will be covered by an upcoming “Introduction to the Core Contributor Program” course that is currently under development. If you would like to beta test the course, or participate in a short video for it, please reach out to me!

  3. We put in a request to Listaflow to add a space for feedback and praise; please use it!

  4. The Open edX Contributors Discussion meeting (every other Tuesday at 15:00 UTC) and the sprint summary forums posts are two other great places to provide shout outs to individuals, teams, and projects.

Additionally, we really enjoyed the face to face with many of you and hope you’ll think of us when you want to chat with another person in the program! Book time with us anytime - either for feedback on the program, a social chat, or both! Look at our calendlys: Calendly - Sarina Canelake (Sarina), Calendly - Xavier Antoviaque (Xavier), Calendly - Dean Jay Mathew (Dean)

Thanks again everyone. I’m looking for your thoughts on all of this, so please - comment away!

PS: Again, if you could fill out a very quick, 3-question survey I’d really appreciate it!

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