GlassFish v3 Documentation Planning Minutes - 11/20/07

Attendees

Rajeev, Ian, Paul, Gail

Agenda

Performing a task-based analysis for GlassFish v3 docs:

• How are we going to do that?
• Who are the key participants?
• What are the next steps?

Discussion Summary

• One way to approach this is to break things down into smaller task-analysis brainstorming sessions, oriented around a specific set of tasks

• Look at GF and the tasks its intended users need to perform (users, administrators, developers); keep in mind the essential goals of the product and how individual tasks support these goals

• Put together a high-level sequence of things that can be done with the app server (what it's intended to do); end up with a sequence of operations (task roadmap), organized around the order in which tasks are performed, frequency of which tasks would be performed, etc.

• Identify related functionality/groups of features and all tasks associated with those features; identify whether they're admin tasks or developer tasks

• Conduct brainstorming sessions around those groups of features; cover different pieces of technology and related tasks in separate sessions; have a number of sessions, each one focused on a piece of technology; for example, might want to conduct a brainstorming session around admin interfaces, etc.

• Start looking at GF v3 design information, identify potential subjects for these task-analysis brainstorming sessions, then identify key participants required for each session

• Need to get a better understanding of what's planned for GF v3; seems very different from v2 in terms of features and functionality; design docs are starting to become available; should be able to glean information from those that will help in this task-based analysis

• For the purposes of this analysis, should try to forget what's in the existing docs; should start with a blank slate; look at the overall product and users' goals and start brainstorming – what are the tasks? Should imagine none of the current docs exist; try to determine all of the things users are likely to do

• Will of course seek community involvement and will want to double-check findings with the community, i.e., did we make the right guesses/assumptions as a result of the task-based brainstorming sessions?

• Will want to present this to community stakeholders: here's the overall plan and here's how we want to get there; get buy-in from key stakeholders
  Next steps:

• Read through the GlassFish v3 design docs and info and come to the meeting ready to discuss how to kick off the task brainstorming sessions, what the scope of the first session should be, and who should be involved (key participants); focus should be the web tier and what's planned for early access

• Next meeting will be Wednesday 11/28 8:30-9:30 pm Pacific

Community Comments and Suggestions?

Any thoughts about this discussion? About GlassFish v3 docs? Please join the conversation! You can do that in several ways:

• Add your comments to this wiki page
• Participate in these discussions; details are posted on the GlassFish v3 docs meeting page
• Use the [docs@glassfish.java.net] mailing list

Documentation is a community effort, and contributions can be small or large, from writing a HowTo topic to collaborating on a larger guide. If you're interested in docs, we'd love to hear from you.