pm/README.md

# Waku Project Management

## Teams

The Waku Team is split in the following subteams:

- Waku Research
- Waku Development nwaku, js-waku, go-waku
- Waku Eco Dev (DevRel, Docs)
- Waku Chat SDK

The Waku Team also gets the support from other Logos groups, in particular:

- Vac/DST: Distributed System Testing Team for simulations and QA/Testing
- Comms Hubs: For communication, marketing, digital content, etc.

## Work Tracking and Reporting Guidelines

### Requirements

The current reporting requirements are 2 folds:

#### 1. Weekly Reporting

Weekly reporting provides an insight on the progress by milestones.

#### 2. Monthly Reporting

Monthly reporting is now handled by the Logos insight team.

### Terminology and Scope

| Name         | Number of             | Timeframe                                      | Team Scope                                      | Owner                  | Description                                           |
|--------------|-----------------------|------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------|------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------|
| Deliverable  | 3-5 per year          | Set yearly for grant request                   | Waku Team                                       | Waku Lead              | TBD                                                   |
| Milestone    | ?                     | Pencilled for the year, planned for 2 quarters | Most subteams                                   | Waku Lead              | A, or cohesive set of, feature(s).                    |
| Epic         | Several per milestone | Set for a milestone                            | Usually one subteam or external team (e.g. DST) | Subteam Lead or Member | Milestone work for a given subteam.                   |
| Task         | Many per Epic         | Set monthly-ish, delivered weekly              | One subteam or individual                       | Team Member            | May be one or several piece of work, client specific. |  

### Milestone Definition

A *Milestone*:

1. **Provides a tangible user benefit:** The milestone should aim to provide a distinct benefit or feature to the user, whether they are end users, operators or developers. In some case, a milestone may be a bundle of small features. The bundle of features should be cohesive and the benefit to the users should be easy to summarize. Most likely, a bundle milestone will be scoped to a given track.
2. **Minimal Scope:** The milestone should be trimmed to a minimal scope, encompassing only what is *just enough* to assess the potential impact of these features on the project's metrics (e.g. number of users, revenue). This means descoping any advanced features and aiming for a MVP-level delivery.
3. **Transversal:** While the vertical scope of a milestone should be minimal, the delivery should be complete in terms of research, engineering, QA, documentation and dev rel assets so that the feature can be pushed to users once the milestone is marked as complete. Feedback loops should be as small as possible to ensure the value of a milestone is measured in a timely manner.
4. **Attached Estimate:** An estimate should be associated with the milestone to facilitate the measurement of potential ROI. Additionally, tracking the estimate versus the actual progress is crucial for identifying any deviation and making informed decisions (e.g., deciding whether to continue if we learn the estimate is likely to be overrun).

### Epics and Workflow

A *milestone* is divided in *Epics*. Each *epic* is assigned to a given subteam.

Waku lead is accountable for the delivery of a *milestone*.

Each Waku subteam lead (or selected member) is accountable for the delivery of their epic.

Typically, each *milestone* will be divided in the following *epics*:

| Epic Prefix  | Owner Sub-team          | Output                                                                             | Description                                                                                                                                                                              |
|--------------|-------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| `E:Research` | Waku Research           | PoC, RFC, Protocol Simulations/Studies                                             | Initial work done by the research team to create or change a protocol. Engineering-only Milestones may not have such epic                                                                |
| `E:nwaku`    | nwaku                   | MVP quality software                                                               | Bring software to MVP level, proceed with re-architecture of PoC if needed, ensure functionality is usable, refine APIs, auto-generated/API documentation, ensure interoperability works |
| `E:js-waku`  | js-waku                 | MVP quality software                                                               | Implement protocol in js-waku, same as nwaku.                                                                                                                                            |
| `E:go-waku`  | go-waku                 | MVP quality software                                                               | Implement protocol in go-waku. May not always be relevant - need to conclude multiple client discussion. Otherwise, same as nwaku.                                                       |
| `E:QA`       | Vac/DST                 | RFC-based + functionality based tests, both unit and integration tests.            | Test engineers take over and complete unit tests + add scenarios in integration test framework. In future, also add scenario to benchmark suite.                                         |
| `E:Dogfood`  | js-waku, go-waku, nwaku | Lab example updates, own nodes updated, etc.                                       | Each dev team proceed by dogfooding the feature/API by using it themselves. Whether it is running their own node, or updating a selected number of examples.                             |
| `E:Docs`     | Doc                     | Documentation (not auto-generated)                                                 | Document the new feature across all implementations, using the dogfooding output as handover material from engineering teams.                                                            |
| `E:Eco-Dev`  | Eco Dev                 | Dev Rel assets (examples, video tutorial, etc), comms plan (X threads, blog posts) | Dev Rel can now prepare assets to push the feature to developers, comms can prepare copies to communicate about it, BD can push it to projects and partners.                             |

```mermaid
flowchart LR
    subgraph milestone [Milestone]
      scope[Define scope and estimate]    
    end
    subgraph researchE [E:Research]
      scope-->research[RFC + Protocol Simulation + PoC]    
    end
    subgraph nwakuE [E:nwaku]
      research-- Handover -->nwaku[MVP, API, Code doc, unit test]
    end
    subgraph js-wakuE [E:js-waku]
      research-- Handover -->js-waku[MVP, API, Code doc, unit test]
    end
    subgraph go-wakuE [E:go-waku]
      research-- Handover -->go-waku[MVP, API, Code doc, unit test]
    end
    subgraph qaE [E:QA]
      nwaku--Handover-->QA[QA, extended, interop and RFC-based testing]
      js-waku--Handover-->QA
      go-waku--Handover-->QA
    end
    subgraph dogfoodE [E:Dogfood]
      nwaku-->Dogfooding[Developer use new software and API, interoperability]
      js-waku-->Dogfooding
      go-waku-->Dogfooding
    end
    subgraph docsE [E:Docs]
      Dogfooding-- Handover -->Docs[Update and create guides]
    end
    subgraph ecodevE [E:Eco-Dev]
      Dogfooding-- Handover -->Eco-Dev[Dev Rel and BD assets, plan Comms]
      Docs-->Eco-Dev
    end
```

### Accountability

Each epic should have an owner per subteam.
Most epics will have a unique owner (e.g. a Waku Research team member owns a `E:Research` epic).
For _Dogfood_ and _QA_ epics, one owner per client should be set.

The epic owner is responsible for breaking down the work in smaller issues in the related repo.

For research team, it is expected that most of the research work is done by the epic owner, which includes:
- Capturing problem statement
- Designing protocol/solution
- Implementing PoC in reference implementation
- Running tests/simulations to confirm behaviour (to be offloaded to test engineer)

For development teams, it is expected that design/break down is done by the epic owner.
But actual work can be picked up by other team member.
Epic owner must:

- Understand the change and its implications,
- Liaise with researcher for any doubt or questions or design issues related to specific client/use case,
- Create issues (_Tasks_) to break down work in client repo, include an _acceptance criteria_ in each issue to ensure that the objective/end goal/behaviour is clearly described.

It is likely that the epic owner will do the core change or first change for a given epic.
However, subsequent/other changes may be picked up in parallel or sequentially by other team members.

Hence:
- dependencies must be clearly stated in _Task_ issue description
- Team members must assign _Task_ issues to themselves when work starts
- Team members must update issues to track progress

The program manager should ensure that epics are getting the right assignee in a timely fashion.
For example, when research work starts for a given milestone, epic owners from development team should be assigned, so they know to participate in discussions.
Program manager should also ensure that issues are being created in a timely fashion,
an is encouraged to use client PM call as a forum to check epics to be assigned, for example when a given epic is near completion.

#### Handovers

The following handovers are defined:

| Handover                      | Expectations when handing over                                                                            | Expectations when accepting handover                                                                  |
|-------------------------------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------|
| Research to development teams | - RFC PR is merged <br /> - PoC PR is merged                                                              | - RFC content and PoC are reviewed <br /> - Own code and functionality <br /> - Own minor RFC changes |  
| Development teams to QA       | - Happy path and selected  error path tests exist <br /> - APIs are implemented to enable interop testing | - Review RFC <br /> - Review existing tests                                                           |
| Development teams to Docs     | - Working usage of API is provided <br /> - Auto-generated documentation for public API is present        | - Review examples <br /> - Understands functionality <br />                                           | 
| Docs to Eco Dev               | - Docs PR is merged with functioning code                                                                 | - Understands functionality <br /> - Execute guides                                                   |


The group or person handing over is expected to initiate a sync (meeting) or async (chat or GitHub) discussion to go through the output and overview.

Once the handover is accepted, the given epic can be closed.

### GitHub Usage

A _Milestone_:
- MUST have a matching GitHub issue in the https://github.com/waku-org/pm repo with `milestone` label assigned.
- MUST have a GitHub Milestone in https://github.com/waku-org/pm repo, to which relevant _Epics_ are added.
- The GitHub milestone MUST be used to track progress.

An _Epic_:
- MUST have a matching GitHub issue in the https://github.com/waku-org/pm repo.
- MUST have a label with format `E:<prefix> <epic name>`.
- SHOULD be added to a GitHub Milestone.
- SHOULD have a `Planned Start` and `Due Date` set (these are GitHub projects fields you can find in the `Projects` section of the issue view sidebar).
- MAY list _Tasks_ present in other repos.
- MUST have assignee(s), who represent the epic owner (see [accountability](#accountability))

A _Task_:
- MAY be tracked as a todo item in a GitHub Issue (_Task_ or _Epic_),
- OR MAY be tracked as a single GH issue
  - that MUST be labelled with related _Epic_ label (`E:...`),
- OR MAY be tracked as a GH Pull Request
    - that MUST have a reference to the related GitHub _Task_ or _Epic_ issue
- MUST have an _acceptance criteria_ and/or a list of _tasks_ (that can be other GH issues).

Finally, for _Tasks_ that do not belong to a given _Epic_ or _Milestone_:
- MUST have either labels:
  - `bug`: This is a bug, likely reported by a user
  - `enhancement`: This is an enhancement out of the scope of the technical roadmap, likely reported by a user
    - Major enhancements should be carefully reviewed and prioritized.
  - `documentation`: Documentation improvement or correction.
  - `dependencies`: Upgrade dependencies in a timely manner to avoid time wasting when the dependency upgrade becomes critical.


Which means, in terms of _navigation_:

- Work for a Milestone is described in the related GitHub issue and tracked in the GitHub milestone.
- In the GitHub milestone, we have a list of _Epics_ to be achieved, the _Epics_ are being closed as the work is done and handed over.
- To look at remaining work for an _Epic_, one need to look at all issues (_Tasks_) with the corresponding _Epic_ label (`E:...`)

### Reporting

**Monthly**:

Handled by insight team

**Weekly**: Report progress on each **active** _Epic_ or _Task_ per subteam.

Every Friday, all team members must add a comment to the GH **issues** (not pull request) they own and worked on the past week or planned to work on next week.

If work is done on several _Tasks_ related to the same _Epic_, team member is free to do their weekly update in common parent issue.

The comment must have the following MarkDown format:

```md
**Weekly Update**

- _achieved_: what was achieved this week; must remain on one line.
- _next_: what will be worked on next week; must also remain on one line.
- _blocker_: any blocking items. Do not include the line if no blocker. 
```

**Omit the lines which are not relevant.**

On Monday, project lead or responsible person for report can run the [milestone-update](https://github.com/fryorcraken/milestone-update) script to generate a report and post it in the Logos Discord.

## Milestones

https://github.com/waku-org/pm/milestones