Add Process and Program Management Persona
Problem to solve
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All the personas available assume the entire Organization is utilizing GitLab and utilize the same methodology for doing work. While that is more efficient and tends to be the case in smaller companies, Larger companies who are trying to shift their culture have growing pains that need to be addressed. Having capabilities in GitLab to address this persona will enable faster culture change by making the transition easier.
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A persona to represent Companies that acquire Products (or other Companies) is needed to keep things separated for a while while a clear migration path is established. This migration could be 6 months, a year and sometimes longer. Having capabilities in GitLab to address this persona will enable easier tracking and management of a hybrid organization.
Proposal
Doug is a Process Manager / Program Manager with a more traditional Program / Project Manager (not a Release Manager) perspective in a hybrid organization. He serves as a bridge between Executive Level Wants, Needs and Directions and the Team Level people doing work in a Self-organized fashion. His job is to:
- Communicate, Coordinate, Facilitate and to Enable his Team(s) to succeed.
- Establish clear Process on interactions between those in GitLab and those working in a more traditional environment.
- Evangelize Culture Shift towards DevOps and Git by including steps for DevOps / Git training into Process wherever feasible.
Frustrations:
- Its difficult to navigate between two different styles of business methodology. Many parts of the org are not in GitLab - forcing a mixed methodology from a Project Management perspective as well as a need for clear process on how others engage the Teams.
- Its difficult to produce meaningful reporting and status - Everyone wants to see the same data but they want to see it in different ways and from different levels
- Its difficult to establish priority around big picture efforts when no one can easily see how those items relate at a higher level. 30 Initiatives all in-flight creates the need to see Initiate Rollup / Summaries
- Its difficult to use a tool that requires coding knowledge when not a coder
- Its difficult to perform traditional Program Management in a tool not set up for Program Management
- Its difficult to create Process Flows (diagrams) in a tool not well-set for easy creation / visualization of Flow Maps (if you can't flow it out how can you automate it?)
Who can address the issue
Marketing maintains a Handbook of Roles-Personas https://about.gitlab.com/handbook/marketing/product-marketing/roles-personas/