More Info + What Time Works For You?

[Greg Nelson]

Just landed today in Rwanda and caught up with the local team here.
It's really great to see them again, can't wait to introduce you all.

This email lays out what we're trying to get done in the next few days
and the time line for first production use of the web app for donor
program tracking - 1st/2nd week of August. Then we ask for when you're
available to help this week and next. If you're short on time, skip to
the bottom two sections.

But first, two things:
1. If you want to come to Rwanda soonish, let's make that happen.
Call me at 906-282-8923.
2. I have much less experience than you collectively do with remote
collaboration or frankly anything. Please send me any questions,
suggestions, doubts, criticism, or crazy ideas.

We'll test remote pairing tomorrow. If you have a favorite toolset for
that, let me know and we'll try it out with you at your convenience.
Low bandwidth = better. We are 6 hours ahead of EST.

Here's what we hope to get done rest of this week:
1. Start up local team of 5-6, knock out lingering equipment/
Internet issues
2. Try out remote pairing, get feedback
3. Get team in Rwanda and volunteers to know each other better
4. Stakeholder diagram for everyone
5. Good progress on smallest feature set needed for the app for
August data collection

As it stands now, the overall delivery time line for the app is:
Now (June 15) - start collaboration between remote developers,
designers, and Rwandan team
Weekly iterations + retrospective + progress evaluation
August, 1st or 2nd week - release for stakeholders (donors, NGOs,
govt) to enter data
After September - Big improvements, like better reporting and
indicators for evaluating programs


Your Schedule

What do you hope to contribute in this next week? When are you free?
Let me know with whatever format is most convenient for you - ical,
ical of free time, etc. Or fill in http://bit.ly/bb6nlB (made for
scheduling meetings but it shows availability). Make sure to change
the time zone to your own in the upper right.

Conclusion

In international development, really teaching and working with local
people while solving important problems is hard. I know that with
everyone's passion we can do something truly great! The more
intermediate successes we have, the more resources / visibility we'll
have. And after delivering what's needed for the app in August, we'll
have even more chances to make big, long term impact.
But we have to get this right first or that's it, so now is
particularly important. So thank you for all that you're able to do,
to make a bit of room in your life to share in this good work. It's
going to be worth it.