Charter

The goal for the Orientation/Training Working Group is that it would be responsible for facilitating the creation, cultivation/maintenance, and accessibility of a set of documents and trainings aimed at bringing new hires up to speed quickly and effectively, as well as for making sure that there is a consistent pipeline for keeping engineers up-to-speed on changes to paradigms and workflows.

The members of this group would not necessarily be responsible for producing the documentation themselves, but rather for identifying, prioritizing, and delegating work to the appropriate resources wherever possible.

The working group:

• Is open to internal edX staff and engineers.

• Can delegate tasks to open edx and community members if appropriate.

• Is responsible for maintaining a map of areas of technical knowledge and their documentation status.

  • I.E. Table-Of-Contents for the orientation documentation.

• Has a backlog of tasks for producing or updating documentation around knowledge areas.

• Acts as a technical advisory resource.

• Prioritizes empowerment and facilitation over “Do It Yourself” execution of its backlog.

• Can organize/push trainings on updated paradigms and workflows

Work Streams

“Needs” generation

What do we need? What are we missing? Dev survey, etc.

Status mapping

Where are the current docs and what (list of tasks) are we missing

Documentation coordination and organization

Produce output directory of onboarding training and reference documentation

Champion documentation to reasonable owners

Find owners and experts for gaps and outdated documents, and co-ordinate adding of tasks to their backlogs to update or add appropriate documents and trainings.

Training coordination

Organize and moderate regular training sessions on important topics and active updates, possibly coordinating with other study groups/working groups/hours as venues for these trainings.

Outcomes

The Orientation/Training working group strives to improve the edX platform through:

• Shared knowledge Providing an onboarding experience that quickly and easily guides new and existing employees through a curated set of sources to ensure their success.

• Discoverability Establishing clear entry points for building and exploring the shared knowledge base for tools, strategies, paradigms, and related trainings/documentation.

• Adaptability Providing a mechanism for teams to stay up-to-speed with modern practices and paradigms when improvements are made or discovered

Potential Membership

Communication

Rituals

Working Session

Decision Making

Accountability

Metrics (Draft, TBD)

FAQ