Hi all,
I have been asked by a number of people to kick off a retrospective for * what worked well * didn't work well in the Xen 4.6 release cycle.
As most of the stress of the last few weeks is now out of the way, I thought it would be appropriate to start this process now, and let it run for a few weeks. We have not done this type of retrospective over e-mail before (we have done so at developer meetings as well as Hackathons). As we have a global and distributed community, I think it is worthwhile trying this by email. To make this work, you need to follow a few ground rules.
= Ground Rules = We would like to hear a) what worked well and b) what didn't work well in this release cycle.
Please provide feedback before August 28th.
== What to discuss / what not to discuss ==
* Do NOT send issues which are personal to the mailing list. This means, do NOT send anything related to individuals or companies that may have occurred in this release cycle. We do not want to have divisive flame wars in our community: this does not fit our values and will help no-one. If you believe that we do have an issue, that requires referring to individuals/companies, please send me a private email following the same formatting conventions as outlined below. I can then work with you to figure out how to best approach this issue or piece of feedback.
* If you are not sure, contact me beforehand and we can discuss the best way forward.
* It is entirely acceptable to discuss process issues in public. Examples of topics that are suitable are: "the hard freeze did not work", "the hard freeze did work well", "we should have longer freeze exception windows", "we should have no freeze exceptions at all", "we should open master to contributions after RC2", "we should rename freeze to something else as it encourages misunderstandings", "we should have a shorter release cycle", etc. - these are just examples.
* If you agree with an issue/solution you can reply to it with a comment or a "+1" in the normal way
* If you disagree or have some concerns about what has been proposed, feel free to reply. You can use the "-1 comment" format.
Please be MINDFUL when you reply to one of the ideas and suggestions that were raised. The ground rule about NOT becoming personal also applies to replies.
== Formatting of Mails ==
* Please only cover only *one* topic per feedback e-mail. In other words please do not mix topics. This makes it easier to collate feedback and for everyone to follow the threads.
* Use the [xen 4.6 retrospective] tag in the subject line to xen-devel@
* You can use the [good] or [bad] tag in the subject line to xen-devel@
* Use [private] and the tags above, and do NOT send the mail to xen-devel@ if this is a question/issue ONLY directed at me. This will help me manage my inbox
* Use [urgent], if your issue should be discussed at the upcoming Developer Summit Aug 18-19, OR if it is something which affects the current release cycle (e.g. "we should open master to contributions after RC2")
* Use a descriptive subject line describing the issue/feedback, e.g. "release cadence was too long", ...
* If you can, reply to this e-mail thread and change the title as described above. That way, most of the feedback will be nicely threaded
== Content == Ideally, you would follow the following template
--- Subject: [xen 4.6 retrospective] ...
= Issue / Observation = Describe what you have noticed Described whether this was positive or negative and how ...
= Possible Solution / Improvement = Describe how you think we could improve the situation Explain why your proposal would make a positive impact ... ---
== Closing the Discussion ==
I will monitor the post-mortem and I will act as facilitator: for example I may call out improper behaviour in public or private to keep the retrospective focussed.
At some point after August 28th, we will look at the issues and suggestions raised and see which ones we can address and how. For the ones we can address, we will condense feedback into concrete proposals which we may put forward for voting (unless everyone agrees that something is a great idea, or strictly speaking no vote is necessary).
Best Regards Lars | 
