Transition Create/Source Code TW assignment to Brendan Lynch

• Stage/group being transitioned: devopscreate / groupsource code
• Current technical writer: @msedlakjakubowski
• Incoming technical writer: @brendan777
• Reassignment milestone: 17.3 for trainee phase, and 17.4 for final handover.

Tasks for current technical writer

• Invite the incoming TW to the stage and group Slack channels.

  • Channel list: TBD

• Post in Slack about the changeover. Communicate the timeline and how MRs will be handled.

  Shared in Source Code Weekly.

• Reach out to the Product Manager, Engineering Manager, and Design Manager to communicate the change.

  • PM: @mcbabin (covered by @derekferguson)
  • EM: @andr3 @dpoosarla
  • PDM: @andyvolpe

Group information for incoming technical writer

To make the transition easier for the incoming technical writer, answer these questions in separate comments threads. Give as much detail as you feel is needed. The incoming technical writer should feel free to ask questions about any of these details:

Some of it is answered in https://gitlab.com/gitlab-org/technical-writing/-/issues/1050#note_2005762564.

• How does the Product Manager plan work for future milestones? Provide links to relevant boards.

• How does the group prefer to communicate in issues and MRs regarding reviews?

  By assigning the TW for review. Often, you'll be involved at the design stage in issues or designs.

• What is the maturity of the feature set and documentation for the feature set?

  Loveable: https://about.gitlab.com/direction/create/source_code_management/

  Many of those features are quite old, therefore, a lot of Engineering work is related to maintaining or porting old features.

• How well are features of the group known to people outside the group?

  Some, related to MRs are widely known. Others, and their interactions, like MR approvals, Code Owners, and branch protections, less so, because not every type of user needs to configure those.

• How much UI text work does the group generate?

  A fair amount: the features like branch rules settings and widgets need UI text reviews. There's currently no Designer assigned to the group (Michael Le moved to another one, but still participates in issues).

• Can the feature set for the group be explored solely on GitLab.com, or does it also require GDK or access to third-party tools?

  I think all features can be explored in GitLab.com. Some require Owner role in a group/project.

• Does the group attract a lot of Support Team Contributions and Community contribution?

  Yes for both, as these are GitLab's core features and important to many developers.

Tasks for EMs and PMs

• Add the incoming TW to team meetings and any group aliases.
  • Meeting list: TBD
• Remove the outgoing TW from team meetings and any group aliases.
• Determine the resources needed by the incoming TW to learn the stage / group features, similar to an engineer's onboarding.

Tasks for incoming technical writer

• Set up coffee chats with the group's:
  • Product manager
  • Engineering manager
  • Frontend and backend team members (not necessary to meet all)
  • UX designer
• Read the product documentation associated with your group (as identified by the group attribute in documentation pages' metadata).
• In the www-gitlab-com repository, update:
  • data/stages.yml, with your new assignment. If you're onboarding as a new Technical Writer, you can wait until you've completed a full release cycle as a trainee before doing this step and the next steps.
    • MR link: Add TW name to stages.yml (gitlab-com/www-gitlab-com!135596 - merged)
• In the gitlab repository, update as needed (in the following order, but can be done in the same MR):
  1. The metadata in all related markdown files (if the group name changed).
  2. Group assignments in lib/tasks/gitlab/tw/codeowners.rake.
  3. .gitlab/CODEOWNERS by running the tw:codeowners Rake task to ensure no pages are missed.
     • MR link: Update codeowners files (gitlab!161284 - merged)

Tasks for technical writing manager

• Update google sheets used for team rebalancing planning.
• Check Workday for the Job Title Specialty (Multi-Select). If the specialty does not exist, create an issue in the People Group general project, and use the Workday: Job Title Specialty Request template.
• Update Workday with the new group assignments.
  • Kati: Log a HelpLab Job Change request for the People group to update Workday with the new group assignments for Brendan. Workday updates the group assignments in data/team_members/person.
  • Diana: Log a HelpLab Job Change request to remove the assignment from Marcin's profile in Workday.