Triage Lead

The Triage Lead role is key to ensuring that people in all of the other roles work efficiently and with impact. They are constantly looking for new Contributors, helping them to express their ideas through well-written Jira issues and connecting them to the Technical Experts who can make assessments of their contributions, feedback and eventually approve them for the Commit Leads to finally add to the specifications.

Responsibilities

• To always follow the GovStack Code of Conduct

• To ensure that any issues raised by Contributors contain enough information for them to be acted upon.

• To be the primary welcoming face for new Contributors to GovStack

• To ensure that people in other roles are able to act most effectively with their limited time

  • To recognise which Technical Leads are best to assess any proposals in the issue and ensure that the Technical Expert is able to feedback to the Contributor effectively.

  • To ensure that each Technical Lead has a list of issues to assess, that contain well-written issue descriptions in them, and allow them to give their technical opinion on efficiently.

  • To ensure that issues presented to the Commit Leads contain well documented descriptions of the change, have the approval of the relevant Technical Experts, and link to prepared Change Requests (or GitHub Pull Requests) that the Commit Lead can choose to merge.

  • Follow up on outstanding questions raised in issues

• To connect with and support potential Contributors via events, online meetings, documentation, etc

Actions

The Triage Lead primary acts reactively to events in the Jira issue queues:

An issue is created via the “Give Feedback” menu on the specifications website

1. Check that the issue has enough information to act upon. If not, make contact with the Contributor to request the extra information required

2. Work with the Contributor to ensure that the issue description includes a description of the problem the issue is aiming to fix (this could be new content, changed content etc), possible fixes, and an explanation why this improves the specifications

3. Work with the Contributor to ensure that the proposed fixes meet the specifications Quality Criteria

4. If the Contributor wishes to create the merge request in GitBook, help them to use the system to create the merge request and add a link to it into the issue

5. When ready, place the issue in the queue of issues for the appropriate Technical Expert via add the correct issue tags

6. Ensure that the appropriate Technical Expert is able to give their opinion on the issue via the issue comments and maybe edit the merge request

7. Once a positive opinion is given for the change by the Technical Expert, place the issue into the queue for a Commit Lead to commit to the repository.

An issue is created by a regular Contributor

1. Note when issues are created by regular Contributors and feedback, where possible, any improvements to the issue description that help it be understandable by people in other roles.

2. When an issue is readied by the regular Contributor, ensure that it is tagged appropriately so that it can be assessed by a Technical Expert

   1. Note that it is quite possible for the Contributor to also be the Technical Expert. In this case, encourage the Contributor to have another Contributor review the work and add their opinions as comments on the issue

3. Once a positive opinion is given for the change by the Technical Expert, place the issue into the queue for a Commit Lead to commit to the repository.

An issue has been positively assessed by a Technical Expert

Whilst the Commit Leads are able to view which issues have already been positively reviewed by the Technical Experts, the Triage Lead can help the Commit Leads by ensuring they contain all the details a Commit Lead will need to make the commit, including a link to the GitBook Change Request or GitHub Pull Request that contains the approved changes.

An issue has been negatively assessed by a Technical Expert

Where a Tech Lead has found problems with the proposed changes in an issue, the Triage Lead should help the Contributor to understand the feedback given in the assessment and, if appropriate, help them to make necessary changes and re-submit. This might take several iterations to achieve success, depending upon the scale of the changes proposed.

When there are no issues requiring attention

In the event there are no issues requiring attention, the Triage Lead should turn their attention towards proactive actions that help future contributions to be more efficient and impactful. These could include improvements to the documentation describing how to contribute (this page included, of course!), adding new ways to learn about GovStack contribution, like introduction videos and blog posts on the GovStack website and holding “GovStack contribution office hours” where Contributors, Experts etc meet online with potential future Contributors to help them get started.

Governance

Whilst any Contributor can help with the actions associated with the Triage Lead role, and are encouraged to do so, the Technical Committee Chair is responsible for appointing people to this role and ensuring they are able to perform its actions. They will report to the Technical Committee on the quantity of issues handled and any problems encountered.

Why be a Triage Lead?

The GovStack project is creating a future of interoperable components that will improve people’s lives all around the world. Being a Triage Lead gives people in the role ability to interact with experts around the world and learn from their expertise. However, it is likely that the majority of Triage Leads will do this as part of a paid role.