Team,
I want to give a high-level status update about the DB connections work which Kriti recently assigned me to coordinate. This is an important topic that I expect will be touching nearly everyone’s work in the coming weeks, so I’d appreciate careful attention to this subject.
How I got here: After being only peripherally involved in the Installation Improvements project (and hence, the DB connections work), I finally previewed Rajat’s DB connection UI PR for the first time late last week. I found the resulting user experience to be very confusing on may levels so I raised some concerns with Kriti in a call, mostly to ask how I ought to go about raising those concerns to the rest of the team since they touched on so many other people’s work. Kriti decided it would be best for her to reply to Mukesh’s email thread, appointing me to coordinate the necessary remaining work. Now I kind of feel like a server at a restaurant, taking a quick taste of a meal that several chefs cooked, and then dumping it on the floor in dissatisfaction. Sorry! 😬 I’m going to help clean it up though!
Importance: I recognize that many people have been working hard on the new DB connection features for many weeks now, and I’m loathe to hold up the release for the sake of perfection. However, Kriti made it clear to me that the DB connection configuration is crucially important for our next release. She understood the concerns I had about the features as we’ve currently implemented them, and she said it’s worth back-tracking to get it right, even if that work delays our release by several weeks. So that’s what we’ll be doing — stepping back to re-think the DB connections behavior and improve it before release.
Architectural work and UI work: As I see it, there are two broad categories of work, each with many small outstanding decisions and tasks:
“Architectural work” is the stuff Mukesh has been designing and Anish has been implementing. Going forward, it will encompass work such as:
“UI work” is the stuff that Ghislaine has been designing, Rajat has been implementing, and Pavish as bee reviewing. Going forward it will encompass work such as:
Additional work: If anyone would like to suggest that we reconsider something else about our DB connection behavior, now is the time to speak up! Brent’s latest email is a great example. He’s highlighted some new questions that deserve thought and discussion. I’ll be making sure that we address any remaining loose ends and reach a point of clarity on them as a team. So please take this time to surface whatever loose ends you may have kicking around in your head!
Current status and next steps:
“Work” vs “project”: The phrase “DB connections work” encapsulates a number of different tasks, with the scope and goals being somewhat in flux currently. Within our projects framework, we could almost classify this “DB connections work” as a proper project, but I’m using the noun “work” instead because we’re between cycles and trying to move quickly with less overhead. If we think of “projects” as rails to keep us on track, then it feels like we’ve veered off the rails a bit right now. I just want to acknowledge that and state my intention to embrace this tangent as only a temporary divergence from our projects structure. If anyone feels strongly about fitting this work more squarely into the projects framework, then I can take the extra time to write up a project or to modify the Installation Improvements project to include this work.