Proposing and Assessing Opportunities

The MDN Opportunity Assessment Process enables MDN team members and contributors to submit "big" ideas to improve MDN, through reviewing, approving, tracking, and planning their implementation, with enough lead time to review and appropriately plan prior to implementation.

Process Overview

Flowchart of the MDN Opportunity Assessment process

Process Steps

1. Propose opportunity: If you have an idea for an opportunity for MDN, complete the MDN Opportunity Submission Form.
2. Review: Proposed opportunities are reviewed in a weekly meeting. If you submit a proposal, please attend the next meeting, if possible, to make the case for your proposal. See the complete set of submitted proposals.
3. Decision: Will the proposed opportunity go into the Prioritized Backlog?
4. If the idea passes initial review, it is placed in Prioritized Backlog (Product Decision Matrix with ranked opportunities).
5. Assess top opportunity (target market, size, scope, etc.)
6. Decision: Do we move forward with implementing the top opportunity?
7. If yes, add it to the Product Backlog and in Taiga, as a draft Epic; if no, the opportunity is discarded.
8. (Approx. 2 months before target implementation): Research feasibility of opportunity and work involved; decompose the Epic into User Story(ies) and Tasks.
9. (Approx. 1 month before implementation): Sprint/Quarter pre-planning phase; determine which user stories in the epic will be part of an upcoming sprint.
10. (Approx. 3 weeks before implementation): Sprint planning for target sprint; refine user story if necessary.
11. (2.5 weeks before implementation): Start sprint; execute user story work.
12. Implement.

Weekly Review Meeting

• Time & Location: Thursdays, 9:00 AM Pacific Time (see this meeting time in your time zone), in the MDN Vidyo room
• Optional to attend--but recommended if you’ve made a submission for review, so you can defend your idea. If you are unable to attend, enlist an ally to attend and support your proposal in your place.
• Chaired by the Product Owner.

Prioritized Backlog

• "20 item rule" - Are there are 20 other proposals in the queue already?

The backlog is capped at 20 items. Even if we deem the opportunity promising enough to go forward, it must be better than one of the items already in the backlog, if there are more than 20 items.

If the proposal is not added to the backlog, then it goes back into the opportunity pipeline, and will be reviewed again the following week. (Submitter can refine opportunity in the meantime.)

Product Backlog

The Product Backlog is also ranked in terms of priority and capped at 20 items, so if the top opportunity in the Prioritized Backlog doesn't rank above the #20 opportunity in the Product Backlog, it is discarded.