EvolutionOfXtc

At Xtc20050322 we kicked off a discussion about XpDay, its organization, and wider XtC governance issues. AdewaleOshineye made some notes prior to this discussion at WikiPageForIssuesRaisedByDuncanAndPeter.

These are my (DuncanPierce) notes on what we talked about. They're based on what I heard, so they might not fully reflect what was being said. You know what to do: edit the page!

This summary is intended to be a starting point rather than the end of the conversation. Because of XtC's loosely-coupled organization and attendence we'll need to keep the conversation going for a little while to ensure most people have a chance to air their views.

To keep things from getting confused I suggest we structure this page as a conversation, putting a horizontal rule, your 10 pence worth and your name at the bottom of what's already there. To prevent the discussion rolling on for ever without clear conclusions I intend (someone else can do it if they like) to summarize what I think the consensus is periodically. That doesn't close the conversation, of course. Remember that we don't have to solve every last problem or discuss things into the ground. We only need to find a way forward that the majority are comfortable with.

My plan at the moment is to keep this conversation rolling by talking to XTCers about it on Tuesdays. I don't know whether I'll be there every Tuesday or it will be appropriate every Tuesday, so if a face-to-face conversation kicks off when I'm not there, please try to get some notes on here afterwards.

A second source of conversation is a Yahoo mailing list called xtc-gov. A small number of people who've been thinking about this for a while are on this list. My suggestion is that we use this page (and pages hanging off it) to keep the conversation so it's available to everyone. I'll try to post reminders onto xtc-gov to keep people who can't make it to xtc in the loop, but I think it's up to everyone who's interested in the conversation to make sure they're taking part.

Ok, here goes.

We tried to talk about:

• XpDay organizers
• "Governance"
• XTC and its future
• The London AgileSeminars
• Bank account and other assets
• Widening the community
• XTC events
• The XTC "brand"

And here is what we actually talked about:

Outreach XTC planning session, once a month, outreach, try to collar "big names" at conferences to come along to XTC.

• As a user group, XTC can get AgileAlliance funds upto 500 USD/EUR to pay speaker expenses -RachelDavies

Weekly Wiki

Weekly content on the wiki is a good thing that attracts people to come along. People find it easier to bring others from their organization if something definite is going on. But, people need to be able to see they can put something of their own into a blank slot in the calendar. One person suggested something along the lines of recording the type of session proposed, so they would know how complete and polished a session to expect (i.e. there's a difference between Kent coming along to talk about XPv2 and someone trying out a conference session proposal).

Widening the community. Are there other groups we can link to? Present to? Get presentations from? ACCU, BCS SPA (other BCS?), Testing?, .Net as alternative to Java, managers, CEOs, CIOs, PMs, BAs, users. Could we put beer vouchers on flyers? (NB: voucher abuse and alcohol abuse might be issues!)

Governance

A proposed model is:

• XTC would remain an informal network.
• From XTC is drawn a group of "custodians" who take responsibility for the assets that need a formal structure (e.g. the bank account, xpday conference organization). Custodianship is based on enthusiasm for being actively involved.
• Custodians actively "shepherd" potential new custodians from the XTC crowd.
• XTCers might get a taste of getting involved with XPDay through helping with London Agile Seminar organization or other XTC related events
• Custodians provide funding for events

Branding

XPDay is a crap term! Obviously, it's more than XP and longer than 1 day. Branding is an issue generally. We're generally called "XTC" but we have an "XPD" logo and xpdeveloper.com as a website. There's no real relationship between the XTC and XPDay websites (though does there need to be?). Someone lightheartedly suggested running any term we come up with through Babelfish to see if it's profane in some other language!

XTC may not be that easy to understand from the outside. Maybe we should explain to the world who we are, what we do, and how to get involved.

Reading group

The reading group is an idea that some people are interested in. Perhaps on a monthly basis. We talked about something similar to the Silicon Valley Patterns group - reviewing draft books in a reading group and sending back our thoughts to the author. (We also thought: The reading group should be a "relaxed" reading group!)

Mailing list

Set up an announce-only mailing list to broadcast to XTCers what is coming up. This avoids the problem of having to remember to check the wiki. RachelDavies noted that the xp-agile-uk-events list was set up on Yahoo for a similar purpose. We could use this one.

Assets

Assets and who's got them at the moment:

• xpdeveloper.com/.org/.net domains and the associated websites (OliBye)
• xpday.org (DuncanPierce)
• bank account (PeterBrown, RachelDavies, PaulSimmons, DuncanPierce, SteveFreeman)
• BenHogan provides a server for hosting various XPDay-related things on it (database, xpday org. wiki, website, [email protected] mailing list)
• OliBye's server and various XTC-related things on it (wiki)
• OliBye has 2x20Gb disks donated by Connextra, owned by XTC
• "brand", XPD logo files (OliBye)
• Lego workshop materials
• Robocode/Xbots workshop materials
• Worldpay login -- who has this? (probably Rachel)
• Agile Alliance contact (DuncanPierce and TimBacon)
• Contact list from XPDay and other sources
• Agile Alliance membership(s) (??? not sure why I have this in my notes) I made a comment that we can get AgileAlliance funds upto 500 USD pay for speakers but we need to give names of between 5 and 10 members of AgileAlliance to get the money -RachelDavies

Retrospective

RachelDavies suggests an XtcRetrospective, starting with "How it all began" as another forum for talking about this.

-- DuncanPierce