Project update for Nominet Trust

The complete report is attached to this blog post; here follows the bits of general interest

Initial call for webmasters to take part in the two ‘webmasters communities of practice’ went very well. Out of a total of 323 webmasters, we had 60 responses, producing an ‘alpha’ community of 14 webmasters, and a ‘beta’ community of 56. All of the alpha group are on a specific mailing list which we aim to use as the main tool for discussion.
- PSE update and invitation link here
We then co-ordinated the first ‘alpha webmasters community’ meeting in London in November 2012 which was a great introduction for the group enabling them to meet and network, discuss the plan, agree to the process and next steps.
- Meeting report here
One of the outcomes of this meeting was for more clarity on the project. We worked on some clear communications diagrams and timeline and roles and responsibilities which have proved very successful in communicating the project – links below:
- Explaining the Transition Constellation
- Explaining the Project Sharing Engine project

Following the first community meeting at which we cleared the high level design, and flushed out some good questions, we clarified the project timeline for all with roles and responsibilities:
- Roles and responsibilities outline
The technical group then began work on the design phase with the developer’s significant design documents and discussion at the pre-design meeting reported on and attached to here:
- Pre-design phase technical meeting report
Work continued, then the next (design) meeting produced some early definitions, and project management processes to break the project down into bite-sized chunks:
- Technical design meeting report
We will be seeking input into the definitions from the alpha community at the end of this week, and are now working on the workflows and wireframes for the service, which we aim to have ready before Christmas. We will share them with the alpha community in early January for feedback so that we can move from the ‘design’ phase of stage one to the ‘build’ phase of stage one.

Defining boundaries between multiple websites is very hard
Attracting people to a Community of Practice is relatively straightforward, but having them engage with it is a bit trickier
Make significant effort producing clearly worded and explained communications tools if you are doing a complex project

At this point in time:

Social track: assess the development of the Community of Practice of webmasters with some indicators of engagement (meeting attendance)
Technical track: production of workflows and wireframes for alpha product