Context

Arch Meetings Today

Today, we have the following Architecture meetings:

• (Cross-org Synch) Monthly Arch Standups (edX-only) for sharing architecture-related status, upcoming work, challenges, dependencies, and blockers across the organization.

  • Inform Status. Inform other teams of status on technical work: completed, in-progress, and upcoming.

  • Identify Convergence. Identify opportunities for commonalities and convergence to avoid duplicated efforts, keep our platform streamlined, and create appropriate abstractions to solve generically when appropriate.

  • Surface Challenges. Share challenges and sources of drag that may need to be addressed at a wider platform-level.

  • Follow-up Action. Create action items for post-standup breakout conversations and action.
    

• (Cross-educate and Train) Arch Study Groups (edX and Open edX) to collectively learn about edX architecture principles and how to put them into practice in our daily engineering.

  • This study group allows us to learn from our past mistakes, learn from practices emerging from industry-wide experiences, and collectively align and develop our own architectural principles to follow at edX.

  • We are collectively writing and understanding more deeply the architectural principles proposed in Architecture Manifesto (WIP).
    

• (Informal Serendipity) Arch Lunches (edX-only) for informal discussions on architecture and other technical concerns.

  • By design, these meetings had been informal and more free-form.

  • At times, they result in follow-up action and beneficial change in our technology or in our organization. While this is not a decision-making body, these serendipitous discussions spark ideas that may result in ADRs/OEPs and tickets on team backlogs.

  • Additionally, it serves as a form of informal office hours to ask live technical questions of the archeological collective.

  • With Covid remote work, this has evolved into “Arch Tea Time” in order to accommodate various home/life situations during the (ET) lunch hour.

  • At times, we have hosted special guests (internal and external to edX) and dove into specialized topics.

  • At times, we have pre-planned topics that folks have proposed to discuss to gather wide-input or to answer questions.

  • At times, we have used Lean Coffee meeting formats for democratized use of attendees' time.

Challenges with Arch Lunch/Tea Today

• Pre-assessing value before attending. Time is a scarce resource for most/all of us. We want to ensure our time spent in meetings are valuable.

  • When Arch Lunch used to be at lunchtime, it was intentionally casual and a way to pass time (and learn) while eating together.

  • Now, we want to ensure value from committing an hour of our precious time during the day.

  • For many team members juggling responsibilities, it is difficult to commit to this hour unless they know what the agenda is beforehand and they have assessed the value for themselves.

• Timezones and conflicts. For a global reach, it is difficult to find a common time that accommodates all needs.

  • To expand this opportunity to others in different timezones, we need to consider their waking hours.

    • Currently, 2pm ET is too late for colleagues in Europe and in Asia.

    • Earlier than 10am ET is too early for colleagues in the US - and especially for those on the west coast.

  • Since we do not have a standard meeting schedule throughout the organization or the community, different teams will have conflicts at different times.

• Open edX absence. The Open edX platform could benefit from a deeper exchange/communication of perspectives between the larger Open edX community members and edXers.

  • Currently, the meeting invite includes edX employees and long-term contractors only.

  • When we invited the community to a recent Arch Tea with a special guest, there was a relatively large community presence (~25?) who remained throughout the meeting.

Proposed Decisions

• Name: Arch Lunch → Arch Tea → Arch XXX

• Cadence: Remain as weekly for 1 hour

• Time: Vary on a weekly basis to accommodate different schedules? See the options below.

• Pre-scheduled Variation: Vary the format and attendees of the meeting on a weekly basis, but with a fixed rotating schedule so attendees know what to expect.

Option A (Fixed Time, Fixed Day) - same time on Wednesday

Option B (Floating Time, Fixed Day) - different times on Wednesdays

Option C (Floating Time, Floating Day) - different times and days of the week

Consequences

• Fixed Time (Option A)

  • Pros

    • Simpler to schedule and plan accordingly.

  • Cons

    • Doesn’t accommodate individuals who have a standing conflict.

    • 11am ET may still not be an ideal time for everyone’s timezones.

• Floating Time (Option B)

  • Pros

    • Accommodates more time zones so there’s a possibility to attend at least once a month.

    • Provides an option for those who have standing team meetings that always conflict with a single timeslot.

  • Cons

    • Harder to schedule other recurring meetings since multiple timeslots would be taken.

• Floating Time and Day (Option C)

  • Pros (in addition to the pros for Floating Time of the Day)

    • Also allows us to keep the current Thursday slot that already seems to work for a few.

    • Thursdays have been a longstanding tradition (but that was for lunchtime anyway).

  • Cons (in addition to the cons for Floating Time of the Day)

    • More complicated and harder to remember and plan appropriately.

• Open edX Attendance

  • Pros

    • Bridging communication gaps with the community.

    • Serendipitous learning and outcomes with edXers and the community.

  • Cons

    • edXers will need to be conscious of not sharing edX-confidential information during these sessions.

• Pre-scheduled Variation of the Meeting Format

  • Pros

    • The different meeting formats allow for different outcomes

      • Lean coffee format results in serendipitous discussions and ensures democratized use of everyone’s time.

      • Pre-planned topic-based agendas result in deeper discussions on topics and individual pre-work and pre-thought. These may be more approachable to those who appreciate thinking through problems beforehand.

    • Variations could keep these meetings fresh and livelier.

  • Cons

    • Additional management to prep agendas and announce reminders beforehand.