Issues Arranging Design Forum Calls

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I agree that we’ve been struggling lately. Here is a proposed SOP:

  • We created https://om.rs/designtime as an entry point for anyone wanting to request design time. I think we should continue to reinforce this approach – i.e., anyone asking for design time elsewhere should be advised to post to https://om.rs/designtime following the directions outlined in the original post on that topic.†

Scheduling a design forum

  1. Whenever someone proposes a topic on https://om.rs/designtime, we reply in a new topic (see HOWTO at https://om.rs/offtopic) to work out timing arrangements (see this post as an example of best practice):

    • Title: “Design time for [proposed title]”
    • Category: Development
    • Label: design-forum
    • Quote the original request (for context)

  2. When 3+ people’s schedules need to be coordinated, create a doodle poll of upcoming available design forum slots and let them work it out.

  3. Leave it up to the person requesting the design forum to ensure enough people have confirmed before we consider scheduling the forum. If they can’t get people to complete the doodle poll, then there’s probably little chance they’re going to get them all on a call together.

Announcing a design forum

  1. Announce design forum topics not fewer than 3 days beforehand (by Monday for a Wednesday forum and by Friday for a Monday forum).

    • Title: "Design Forum YYYY-MM-DD: [proposed title]
    • Category: Development
    • Labels: meetings design-forum

  2. Ensure the time of the call is included in the announcement

  3. Quote the proposal in the announcement, changing “required attendees” to “ATTN”. See this post for example of best practice. This allows people to see a brief description & objectives for the discussion, who proposed it, and calls out attendees yet again.

  4. Extra credit: revise the OpenMRS calendar (om.rs/cal) entry for that design forum to include the topic and description. I’m not sure if this is necessary, but it would be a nice touch and might help people with timezone dyschronometria.

† I’ve requested a topic-specific reply template for Discourse. If that ever happens, it would make it even easier for people to standardize their design forum proposals.

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