Providing Steering - ARCHIVED

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This content might be obsolete as the page was archived following deprecation of the concept of FINOS Programs in early 2020. For the latest on FINOS Corporate Governance please refer to the FINOS website while for the Community Governance check the FINOS Community Github Repository.

One of the formally-defined responsibilities of each Program's PMC is to provide technical guidance to project teams and working groups, either:

upon request; or
when a project or working group appears to be faltering or diverging from the scope of the Program

This reference describes the second scenario. For the first scenario please refer to /wiki/spaces/FINOS/pages/75530357 and Requesting Steering (Working Group) - ARCHIVED.

Conditions Requiring Steering

In essence the PMC is expected to be actively monitoring the Projects and Working Groups within their Program, and ensuring that they remain relevant and active, in scope for the Program, and comply with all Foundation policies. A Project or Working Group that is failing to meet these requirements, or appears to be on a path towards failing to meet these requirements, requires pro-active steering from the PMC. Such situations should also be /wiki/spaces/FINOS/pages/93225748.

Examples of situations where steering may be warranted:

Lack of activity:
- Project team that has become unresponsive to issues, PRs, etc.
- Project that hasn't had any commit activity in more than 3 months
- Working Group that has repeatedly canceled their meetings, and has no activity on their email list
Leadership vaccuum:
- Project / Working Group is missing a lead / chair, and hasn't found a replacement in a reasonable amount of time (e.g. 1 month)
IP compliance violation:
- Project introduces a dependency that has a non-compliant license

Effective Steering

The objective in steering a Project or Working Group is first and foremost to assist them in self-correcting. The first point of contact should always be the Project lead or Working Group chair, who in many cases will be able to explain the situation themselves quickly. If the lead or chair is unavailable (or part of the issue), the entire Project team or Working Group should be consulted about the situation that has raised concerns.

The appropriate corrective action will vary depending on the scenario, though often those consulted will have the best suggestions, given their inside knowledge of the situation.