2012-06-13 Adapting an Incubation Process for the New Organization

Description

The Founding Board of the proposed, merged organization calls for a reformulation of the Jasig incubation process to facilitate the journey of a new project to full organizational sponsorship. This discussion will address such questions as what happens to existing projects on both sides, what should the requirements be to obtain full sponsorship, how do we measure when a project should be terminated? Should communities of interest be handled differently than software communities? If a project graduates from the incubator, what does full sponsorship mean? It might be useful to attend the track session on Incubation if attendees are not familiar with the current Jasig process.

Materials

• Document 1
• Slides
• Link

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Attendees

• Name, contact info

Minutes or notes

Incubation BOF

Jasig Sakai Joint Conference – Atlanta

Wed. June 13, 2012

Three questions asked initially:

1)      Does the current process need more structure – if so, what’s missing?

2)      What about existing projects – do we grandfather them into sponsored status, allow them to be non-graduating, make a checklist and give them lots of time to think about components?

Jasig process similar to “tool” lifecycle in Sakai

Each community  determines what sponsorship means, and what constitutes a red flag (significant costs or significant risks) to the foundation.

Incubation generates a “Seal of Approval” that can give schools confidence that they can adopt.   Says the Foundation is distributing the project.

Merger gives us an opportunity to repurpose.  What do we think is important?  Ask communities or incubation projects in what areas could you benefit from further help?  Ex. Community governance models, licensing, ongoing sharing of best practices, craft.

Can we use 2-3-98 maturity model as part of checklist?

Need to revisit with regular reviews. Current process allows for graduation, not more.

Need a value proposition of the incubation process itself.  How do we provide value to projects, communities of interest, the Foundation itself. 

Should we be using graduation as a term? Sounds too final.  Result is that sponsorship is conferred. Can we expand mentoring beyond the committee so it scales better?

Identified need is in building community.  An example of mentorship in a soft skill – how to pitch your project.

Alignment of sponsored projects of new organization – what’s important generates checklist.

We need to address both sides: What are projects going to do for us. | What are we going to do as projects.

Expand communities of interest to include new ones such as Teaching and Learning and make sure the process is relevant.

Next Steps:  Form a working group that will make an initial checklist and vet it. The process is what we will use to determine what is important in obtaining sponsorship.  First step, write a value proposition statement. 

Possible members:  Megan May, Robert Sherratt, Max Whitney, Andy Sears, members of the current Jasig incubation group, Pat Masson, Patty Gertz, John Lewis.  Paul Walk has agreed to be the functional user we test our theories against.

Action items

• Form a working group. Write a value proposition. Make initial checklist.