Message from SIGAHR - Hyrax PO Changes
Van Tuyl, Steven
Dear Samvera Colleagues,
After serving in the position of Product Owner for more than two years, Steven Van Tuyl will be stepping down as early as July 31. The Hyrax community wishes to thank Steve for his service, which has undoubtedly led to the growth and consolidation of a Hyrax community within Samvera, but also led to significant development of the Hyrax solution bundle.
At this time, the Hyrax community is considering how to move forward with the duties undertaken by the Product Owner position. For the past two years, Oregon State University Libraries and Press has allocated 20% of Steve’s time to this role. However, as we consider moving forward, we should acknowledge that Steve spent much more than 20% of his time on Hyrax related tasks, and any future Product Owner will likely need a commitment of 50% time or more.
As in any period of transition, we are taking a moment to assess the duties of the Hyrax Product Owner and consider feedback from prior occupants of the role, as well as the current needs of the Samvera and Hyrax communities.
Reflecting upon the actual needs of Hyrax within the open community model of Samvera, the Product Owner position has required significant overhead and project management work beyond the usual role of a PO.
At this time, we are seeking nominations and self-nominations for the role of Hyrax Product Owner. This role provides those interested with a tremendous leadership opportunity, as well as a chance to sharpen organizational and community-building skills, and see their work valued in the open repositories community.
As an additional FYI: Steve has generously offered to stay on in an advisory capacity to assist the incoming Hyrax Product Owner.
We hope that those considering the opportunity will have the support of their local organization and be able to remain in the position for at least 2 calendar years from the date of start, with the possibility of extension or continuing on to support the next Hyrax Product Owner.
Duties of the Hyrax Product Owner
The full duties of the Hyrax Product Owner are outlined in the Appendix at the end of this message.
In broad strokes, the Hyrax Product Owner oversees:
- Outreach: Potential users, monitor Hyrax-related discussion, reporting to Samvera stakeholders
- Resourcing: Articulation of needs, managing calls for effort, outreach for resourcing
- Planning: Determining community needs, participation in relevant Samvera Groups, coordination and scheduling of resources
- Development Efforts: management and identification of issues, coordinating staff resources, maintaining project and personnel schedules, outreach for development milestones
A review of these responsibilities stretches well beyond the defined role of a Product Owner in the Agile/ Scrum work team, and should clearly be articulated as project management work. Those considering the PO role for Hyrax should note the range and variety of responsibilities currently applied to the “Product Owner” title.
If you are Interested
Those interested in taking on the role should:
- Consult locally with your supervisors regarding this position and the impact of any change of duties
- Reach out to Steve Van Tuyl with a letter of interest, a brief CV, and a letter of support from your home institution (steve....@oregonstate.edu)
We deeply appreciate your consideration of this key role in the Samvera Community and look forward to our future conversations.
Best regards
Samvera Interest Group Advising the Hyrax Roadmap (SIGAHR)
Appendix
Responsibilities of the Hyrax Product Owner
Outreach
- Meetings with potential and current Hyrax users to discuss features, migration, roadmaps
- Monitor relevant communication channels to help direct Hyrax questions to the appropriate place
- Update Samvera Partners and Samvera Steering on Hyrax activities and roadmap including one or more presentations/workshops at Samvera Connect
- Report on state of Hyrax to the Samvera community, broader repository communities, and other interested parties
Resourcing
- Communicate resourcing needs to the Samvera Community for development efforts, Hyrax Working Group, and non-development efforts (e.g. metadata coordination, UIUX prioritization)
- Identify potential participants in efforts to improve and enhance Hyrax (developers, coordinators, designers, metadataists, etc.)
- Solicit resources from Samvera community institutions including: communicating time needed to complete tasks/efforts, coordinating the gathering and prioritization of requirements, and communicating expectations of participating institutions
Planning
- Set priorities for Hyrax development work by engaging with the Samvera community and potential users to identify needs
- Meet with IG and WG members to discuss alignment of IG/WG work with Hyrax roadmap needs
-
Participate in relevant Samvera community committees including:
- Roadmap Council
- SIGAHR
- Partners Meetings (as requested)
-
Schedule and coordinate efforts to improve Hyrax through:
- Organizing software development efforts
- Scoping, requirements gathering, and design for new features/feature sets
- Collect data from the Samvera community regarding the state of Hyrax, future needs, and areas of concern
Development Efforts
- Work with the Work Cycle Technical Lead to identify and ticket new and emerging work cycle-related issues in GitHub
- Coordinate timing and FTEs with participants and their supervisors
- Set and interpret requirements for development effort
- Work with the Work Cycle Technical Lead to prioritize and set milestones for issues
- Maintain the schedule of participants in the development effort
- Send letters of appreciation to individuals and their supervisors
- Schedule and run demonstrations of the development effort outcomes for community and stakeholder consumption
<><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><><>
Steve Van Tuyl
Digital Repository Librarian
Oregon State University Libraries and Press
web | http://osulibrary.oregonstate.edu/staff/vantuyls
email | steve....@oregonstate.edu
phone | 541.737.3492