The Data Team Planning Drumbeat is a pre-set sequence that happens every quarter. The Planning Drumbeat follows GitLab's financial year/quarter structure. The Data Team Planning looks as follows:
Milestone naming convention; Milestone FYxx-Qxx-MSxx. I.e. FY22-Q02-MS01
LT = Leadership Team (@rparker2, @iweeks, @dvanrooijen2, @mlaanen)
DT = Data team (Product Fusion Team, GTM Fusion Team or Data Engineering Team)
The overall ambition is to structure why, when and what we are doing.
This top-down approach is leading, but not fully limited to the way we work.
The Data Team OKRs aspire to align with Business Technology OKRs, Finance Division OKRs, and CEO OKRs, thereby aligning with the OKRs of the Divisions we support. Due to the nature of the the technical and data infrastructure work required to develop and operate an Enterprise Data Warehouse this will not always be the case.
By the end of a FQ, the Data Team will outline all actions that are required to succeed with our KRs and in helping other teams measure the success of their KRs. We do this via an issue in which everyone lays out all the steps they anticipate for each of the relevant actions. This is a great time for the team to raise any blockers or concerns they foresee. These should be recorded for future reference.
These OKRs drive ~60% of the work that the central data team does in a given quarter. The remaining time is divided between urgent issues that come up and ad hoc/exploratory analyses.
Examples of OKR alignment in-action includes:
During the OKR Review, the Data Leadership Team reviews the current status of the current FQ KRs. The results of the OKRs are evaluated and propagated to next FQ OKRs where applicable.
The outcome of the work breakdown is a detailed description of the work to be performed, deliverables and responsibilities in the next quarter and is determined by:
The work breakdown is team effort and everyone is encouraged to contribute.
We use a T-Shirt sizing approach for quickly sizing the work required to deliver new issues, epics, and longer-term initiatives. The T-Shirt sizing approach is designed to support work breakdowns towards the creation of detailed work plans, but also intended to provide a sufficient level of detail to manage overall scope.
| Size | Dedicated Person Time | Weight (issue points) | Examples |
|---|---|---|---|
| XS | < 1/2 Day | 1 | Update existing handbook page. #data research/response. New Trusted Data Test. |
| S | < 1 Day | 2-3 | New handbook page; typical triage issue; New dashboard on top of existing models. |
| M | 1 Week | 5-8 | New dashboard requiring new models. New data source with Stitch or Fivetran. |
| L | 2-3 Weeks | 13 | New fact table implementation & testing. Full XMAU solution. |
| XL | 1-2 Months | 26 | New Data Pump to new system. New Data Source with complex source API. |
| XXL | 2-4 Months | 52+ | New Dimensional Model subject area with New Data Sources. |
The data team works in two-week intervals, called milestones. 1 milestones per quarter will take three weeks long, because a quarter contains 13 weeks. The milestone that takes 3 weeks is the milestone that covers a major holiday or if the majority of the team is on vacation or at Contribute. Milestones start on Wednesdays and end on Tuesdays. This discourages last-minute merging on Fridays and allows the team to have milestone planning meetings at the top of the milestone.
Milestone planning should take into consideration:
The timeline for milestone planning is as follows:
| Day | Current Milestone | Next Milestone |
|---|---|---|
| 0 - 1st Wednesday | Milestone Start Roll Milestone |
- |
| 7 - 1st Tuesday | Midpoint Any issues that are at risk of slipping from the milestone must be raised by the assignee |
- |
| 10 - 2nd Friday | The last day to submit MRs for review MRs must include documentation and testing to be ready to merge No MRs are to be merged on Fridays, or on Thursday in the case of Family and Friends Day. |
Milestone is roughly final Milestone Planner verifies issue priority and team capacity for next milestone. |
| 13 - 2nd Monday | Last day of Milestone Ready MRs can be merged |
- |
| 14 - 2nd Tuesday | Meeting Day All unfinished issues either need to be removed from milestones or rolled to the next |
Milestone Planning Sync-meeting to perform retro perspective on the current milestone and align/start on the next milestone according to the created milestone planning. All unfinished issues either need to be removed from milestones or rolled to the next |
The goal of this process is to improve our ability to plan and estimate work through better understanding of our velocity. During the milestone planning process, we assign issue points, which are a good measure of consistency, as milestone over milestone should share an average. Then we pull into the milestone based on when we think we can commit to the work being completed. Then issues are prioritised according to our standing priorities.
People will likely be working on no more than 2 issues at a time.
This approach has many benefits, including:
The Planning drumbeat and execution is team-effort
