Projects are outcomes that have to be realized.

The Directly Responsible Individual (DRI) is the person who will be held accountable for this outcome - for worse or better.

The DRI does not have to do the work only by himself. He just has to make sure whatever is needed gets done.

To be able to bear this responsibility, the DRI requires a system which supports several functions.

Discourse is the platform that can empower a DRI to bring a project to a succesful conclusion.

What How (Discourse feature)
Overview of projects he is DRI of Top-level categories (1)
Grouping tasks into projects Subcategories (2)
Access control Subcategory permissions (3)
Project outline Pinned post in a project category (4)
Tasks management and assignment Discourse Assign plugin (5)
Asynchronous collaboration Threaded conversations, private conversations & wiki posts (6)
Task tracking URL querystrings & tags (7)

Notes:

  1. These categories are accessible to the entire staff. Therefore, permissions should be set to all staff-* groups (ie. groups staff-gmt, staff-gmtt & staff-gmttl).

    A new user can should be added to the system with the following procedure:

    1. Create a new user (username = full name without spaces)
    2. Give user Moderator rights (only then can they be assigned tasks)
    3. Create new staff-gmtxxx group as needed for fine-grained permissions
    4. Create a new DRI-<name> category.

  2. Tasks go into projects if they can. If they do not naturally fall into projects, tasks can be placed directly into a DRI top-level category.

  3. Subcategories represent projects under the responsibility of a DRI. They allow for fine-grained access permissions to only a subset of personnel.

    Permissions to the sub-categories can be set to:

    • staff-gmt (Guus, Mathijs, Thijs)
    • staff-gmtt (Guus, Mathijs, Thijs, Tim)
    • staff-gmttl (Guus, Mathijs, Thijs, Tim, Lloyd)

  4. Basic project information can be stored at as the first post within any project category. Having a project outline is recommended, and maybe should be made necessary.

  5. Topics represent tasks within a project. These topics can be assigned to ‘workers’ using the Discourse Assign plugin.

    A single topic may be may, through its lifetime, be assigned to several people. The DRI will stay the same however.

    Once you’re done, close the topic. You can then unassign it so that you won’t see it anylonger.

  6. Calls and meetings should be kept at a minimum for maximum productivity. This requires a structured, asynchronous communication system. Discourse provides all the basics.

  7. To do (topic) lists can be filtered with URL querystrings.

    They will help you find tasks with any status or assignment, in any arbitrary category.

    Post-fix www.robotexchange.io/latest with…

    • ?status=open
    • ?status=closed
    • ?status=archived
    • /latest?assigned=username to view all assigned topics for a user
    • /latest?assigned=* to view all assigned topics for all users
    • /latest?assigned=me to view all assigned to current user
    • /latest?assigned=nobody to view all unassigned
    • ?solved=yes
    • ?solved=no

    Parameters can be combined with the & character.

Note: Handy links for to users’ tasks and responsibilities