Grants:Project/Rapid/Wiki Education Foundation/AgileVentures experiment

statusfunded
Wiki Education Foundation/AgileVentures experiment
AgileVentures is a Ruby on Rails-focused software development and education community that gives new developers project experience by building web applications for nonprofits. We want contract with AgileVentures for project management services to help organize and orient more interested developers, to see if working with this group is a good way to improve the Wiki Ed and Programs & Events dashboards.
targetmany, via improvements to the Programs & Events Dashboard
start dateFebruary 1
end dateMarch 31
budget (local currency)2000
budget (USD)2000
grant typeorganization
non-profit statusYes (and AgileVentures is one as well)
contact(s)Sage (Wiki Ed) (sage(_AT_)wikiedu.org)LiAnna (Wiki Ed) (lianna(_AT_)wikiedu.org)
organization (if applicable)Wiki Education Foundation
website (if applicable)https://wikiedu.org


Project Goal

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Briefly explain what are you trying to accomplish with this project, or what do you expect will change as a result of this grant. Example goals include, "recruit new editors", "add high quality content", or "train existing editors on a specific skill".

Improve the Wiki Ed dashboard codebase, for Programs & Events Dashboard and Wiki Ed Dashboard users
Evaluate the potential for longer-term active participation in the AgileVentures software development community as a way to foster continued development of the dashbaord

Project Plan

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AgileVentures is a Ruby on Rails-focused software development and education community that gives new developers project experience by building web applications for nonprofits. Wiki Ed has been participating in it recently and it seems promising as way to grow the developer community around the dashboard.

Several good code contributions have already come in, with more anticipated soon. The participants are primarily people working on self-education in software development; many have participated in a series of Agile Development MOOCs with which AgileVentures is associated. Many have the skills and interest to be part of a volunteer product team, but lack professional experience as software developers.

However, the AgileVentures community is primarily active at different times of day than Wiki Ed's product manager.

With this grant, Wiki Ed will contract with AgileVentures to have them provide project management support and help developers in other time zones get started and participate in the development of the dashboard.

Activities

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Tell us how you'll carry out your project. What will you and other organizers spend your time doing?

Wiki Ed will establish a $2000 contract with AgileVentures for AgileVentures staff to provide project management support for the dashboard project.
The dashboard's product manager Sage Ross will participate in the AgileVentures community through daily open standup meetings, onboarding of interested developers, and code review, and also coordinate with AgileVentures staff for doing similar coordination activities at other times of day.

How will you let others in your community know about your project (please provide links to where relevant communities have been notified of your proposal, and to any other relevant community discussions)? Why are you targeting a specific audience?

Sage regularly participates in a stakeholders meeting for Programs & Events Dashboard users and WMF staff, and will incorporate the needs of Programs & Events dashboard users into prioritization and roadmapping during this project.

What will you have done at the end of your project? How will you follow-up with people that are involved with your project?

At the end, Wiki Ed will document what we learn about the long-term prospects of regular participation in the AgileVentures community, with a rough answer to the question: how well can we develop the dashboard through volunteer contributions from AgileVentures participants?

Impact

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How will you know if the project is successful and you've met your goals? Please include the following targets and feel free to add more specific to your project:

The project will be minimally successful if we have at least 10 code contributions from at least 5 different AgileVentures participants during February - April 2017, and we have an answer to the question above.
The project will be highly successful if contributions from the AgileVentures community allow us to accomplish significantly more high-priority development than what Sage would have accomplished on his own during that time.

Resources

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What resources do you have? Include information on who is the organizing the project, what they will do, and if you will receive support from anywhere else (in-kind donations or additional funding).

Staff time from Sage Ross, head of Wiki Ed's dashboard project

What resources do you need? For your funding request, list bullet points for each expense:

  • $2000 — 20 hours of AgileVentures project management service, including inviting, onboarding and coordination of new developers to work on dashboard improvement, for 5 two-week sprints
    • Running a planning meeting for each sprint
    • Running daily 15-minute project scrum meetings
    • Running a retrospective meeting for each sprint

Endorsements

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  • I have used the Programs & Events Dashboard several times a week since 2015. I think that this tool is essential for anyone who organizes Wikipedia outreach programs, whether in person or virtual. I generally support its development. I expect that this tool will continually become more popular among all Wikimedia chapters and user groups and with anyone who does Wikimedia outreach in any Wikimedia project or language. Blue Rasberry (talk) 23:04, 4 January 2017 (UTC)
  • I would love to see continued development of this tool for our global program leaders! Tighe Flanagan (WMF) (talk) 23:33, 10 January 2017 (UTC)
  • This tool is key to the future of Education and GLAM. Every improvement to it will benefit th community and the organization of events greatly. VMasrour (WMF) (talk) 01:07, 11 January 2017 (UTC)