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Technical Writing milestone plan for 17.9

This issue provides a consolidated view of what the Technical Writing team expects to work on with their assigned groups for the upcoming milestone. In addition to the work with their assigned groups, the Technical Writing team also works on other tasks that are not reflected in this issue.

On the 1st of each month:

The TW Bot creates the issue for the upcoming milestone using a scheduled pipeline.

We open this issue on the 1st to align with planning activities carried out by other teams and stakeholders. The 1st is on or around 12 days before the milestone begins. For example, for 16.8 (2024-01-17), the milestone starts on 2023-12-16 and we open this issue on 2023-12-01. For more information, see the product development timeline.

By the start of the milestone:

The TW carries out planning activities for their assigned groups, and populates Checklist and links to confirm these activities have taken place:

  1. Have a conversation - synchronously or asynchronously - with either the group PM or EM to review:

    • Planned documentation and UI text work for the upcoming milestone (Milestone: Upcoming) or (Milestone: Started).
    • Improvement or development opportunities they're aware of in their areas of the product documentation.
    • If any deprecations can be announced according to the process for deprecating and removing a feature. Deprecations should be announced as soon as possible, but the group should have a firm idea of deprecated features from about half-way through a major release cycle.

    This can be a regular group meeting or any other means of communication that you have established with your group.

    If the TW, PM, or EM is unavailable around the beginning of the milestone, we encourage using async methods (like commenting in issues or Slack messages) or having conversations at an earlier time. If the conversation happens before the creation of the issue, just add the planning information to the issue when it's available.

  2. Identify a linked artifact that describes the upcoming planned work, such as:

    • An issue board for the group's documentation/UI text items for the milestone.
    • A filter that describes/lists the planned work. (Example for devopsplan)
    • The group's planning issue, if it identifies issues/MRs that require Technical Writing team involvement. (Example)

  3. Select the appropriate checkboxes and share the links to planned features to confirm that the "conversation" has taken place.

Checklist and links

After you've reviewed the plan with your PM or EM, select the checkbox for your group. If you can't meet with the PM or EM for some reason (perhaps they're on PTO), append that information to the end of the line and leave the checkbox cleared.

Stage devopsfoundations

Stage devopsplan

Stage devopscreate

Stage devopsverify

Stage devopspackage

Stage devopsdeploy

Stage devopsmonitor

Stage devopsapplication security testing

Stage devopssecurity risk management

Stage devopssoftware supply chain security

Stage devopsfulfillment

All Fulfillment groups: board

Stage devopssystems

Stage devopsdata stores

Stage devopsplatforms

Stage devopsai-powered

Other events and team efforts this milestone

Events

✂️ UX Paper Cuts

Epic that links to UX Paper Cuts team planning issue for this milestone. Issues and MRs have regular stage/group labels.

TW recurring tasks

TW team KRs

Other team KRs

List of KRs from other teams with Technical Writing impact or involvement this quarter:

Stage and group TW KR
Most stages and groups Most Technical Writers PM-driven Q4 KR, TWs will review MRs from the KR https://gitlab.com/gitlab-com/gitlab-OKRs/-/work_items/9746

Stage lead issues (FY25Q4 - through 2025-01-31)

Stage TWs Issue
devopsapplication security testing @rdickenson @phillipwells #1154
devopsverify @marcel.amirault @lyspin @rsarangadharan #1160 (closed)
devopsai-powered and devopsmodelops @sselhorn @jglassman1 @fneill #1149 (closed)
devopscreate @aqualls @brendan777 @jglassman1 @ashrafkhamis #1146 (closed)
devopsplan @msedlakjakubowski #1144 (closed)

Docs site work

Edited by Leala Smith