Our New Project Coordinator

[Mike Parker]

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!