Proposal to reduce the current target of 5 Docs MR's per month to a more realistic target?
Problem Statement
I would like to propose that we reduce the current target of 5 MR's per month as outlined in the GitLab handbook to a more realistic target. The reasons why I am proposing this are as follows:
- Some engineers I have spoken to were not aware that we had this target
- Some engineers I have spoken to feel it is not an easily attainable target
- The chart shows that we are not even close to hitting this target (running consistently below < 1)
What is the problem?
We are not hitting our clearly defined target
Why is this a problem?
- This is publicly accessible information so may be perceived negatively by our customers.
- We are likely not documenting all of the reusable information captured during the debugging of support issues.
- It could be perceived as a support inefficiency
Proposal
As a first iteration I propose the following:
- We consider lowering the target to a more attainable value for example 3 (with a view to iteratively increasing the target in the medium to long term)
- We highlight the new target in our 1 to 1 meetings and in the wider support meetings
- We actively encourage support engineers to update the docs on a more regular basis so that we embrace the docs first approach
- We actively monitor the MR target more closely moving forward
As a next iteration, we could look for innovative ways to encourage support engineers to update the docs more. For example, a good place to start would be to have discussions with those engineers who regularly overachieve to see if there are is any advice they can provide to the wider team.
DRI
Potential Roadblocks/Things to consider
- Some engineers may not feel confident performing doc updates
- Some engineers may feel it is an added stress to their working life
What does success look like?
We see an increase in the avg MR per month rate above the current and past levels
- How do we measure success?
- Check the GitLab handbook section for MR updates by support on a monthly basis
Edited by John Lyttle