2026-01-06 Product/Community Team

[joecastiglione]

Agenda

• Admin
  • Agency Product / Community committee presentation schedule
  • TRB Lunch
  • Zephy Impactful Research Award
• Phase 11B Task Status Confirmation and Next Steps
  • CS
    • Consolidated Error Definitions (Issue #692) DONE
    • Trace files from the same run should have hash identifier (Issue #899) AWAITING REVIEW
    • Clean Up Command Prompt Logging (Issue #408) DONE (only for non-Sharrow?)
  • Driftless
    • SANDAG Sharrow Performance Optimization (Issue #38) AWAITING REVIEW / TESTING BY SANDAG?
  • RSG
    • Consistent Alternatives File Formatting (Issue #846) UNDER REVIEW
    • Trip Scheduling Choice Reproducible Random (Issue #891) AWAITING REVIEW
    • Fix Shadow Price Zones Reopening (Issue #820) NEED TEST
  • WSP
    • UV Testing and Users Guide (Issue #995) ADDITIONAL ROUND COMPLETE? AWAITING REVIEW?
    • Global Option to Skip Households If Choice Simulation Fails (Issue #892) AWAITING REVIEW
    • Example SANDAG Model Update (Issue #34) AWAITING REVIEW / TESTING BY SANDAG?
• Product / Community Team Discussion Follow Up
  • Responsibilities
    • Feature requirements development
    • Coordination with the executive team
    • Invoice review
    • Deliverable review?
    • Roadmap updates?
    • GitHub issue management?
  • Coordination approach
    • Insufficient time during meetings
    • Additional meetings?
    • Asynchronous coordination?
  • Consultant membership / participation
  • Potential solutions
    • Executive team conduct intensive review of team structures and responsibilities post-TRB
    • Empower team leaders with executive authority for routine decisions?
    • Implement co-leader decision-making for straightforward issues?
    • Escalate complex or ambiguous issues to full team discussion?
    • Recognize that ActivitySim's issue volume (approximately 10 per month) doesn't require intensive administrative infrastructure
    • Document decision / process flow
• Testing Policies and Strategies
• All Hands Meeting Rebranding and Policy

Notes

Attendees: Zephyr Foundation staff, Drew Cooper (SFCTA), Jilan Chen (SEMCOG), Jeff Newman (Driftless), Joe Flood (CS), Sijia Wang (WSP), David Hensle (RSG), Sumit Bindra (TransLink), Stefan Coe (PSRC), David Ory (WSP), Dennis Farmer (Met Council), Mark Moran (MWCOG/NCRTPB), others

Administrative Updates

Agency Update Schedule

The team discussed filling remaining presentation slots through the end of the fiscal year. Met Council has signed up for one slot. These agency updates can cover ActivitySim implementation progress, technology challenges, policy questions, or behavioral topics—anything activity-based with linkage to ActivitySim. Seven slots remain available, and agencies are encouraged to reach out with potential topics.

TRB Activities

Approximately 7-8 people have signed up for the TRB lunch. Attendance appears lower this year compared to past years. A reminder will be sent to confirm final numbers and restaurant reservations.

ActivitySim has been selected as the recipient of the Zephy Impactful Research Award for 2026 at the Zephyr reception on Tuesday evening. The team is seeking an agency or consultant representative to attend and accept the award on behalf of the consortium. Jilan Chen indicated potential availability pending schedule confirmation.

Phase 11B Task Order Status

The team reviewed progress on all 11B task orders, with the goal of closing them out before issuing 11C task orders within the next month.

Phase 11B Task Status Confirmation and Next Steps

• CS
  • Consolidated Error Definitions (Issue #692) COMPLETE
  • Trace files from the same run should have hash identifier (Issue #899) COMPLETE
  • Clean Up Command Prompt Logging (Issue #408) COMPLETE (for both non-Sharrow and Sharrow implementations)
• Driftless
  • SANDAG Sharrow Performance Optimization (Issue #38) - Most work complete, experiencing intermittent crashes that are difficult to replicate. Requires ongoing coordination with SANDAG to test potential solutions.
• RSG
  • Consistent Alternatives File Formatting (Issue #846) - Substantially done, one final testing item to resolve with Jeff Newman
  • Trip Scheduling Choice Reproducible Random (Issue #891) COMPLETE
  • Fix Shadow Price Zones Reopening (Issue #820) - Pull request open and ready for Jeff Newman's review, includes new unit test for shadow pricing
• WSP
  • UV Testing and Users Guide (Issue #995) - Second round of agency outreach needed. Consultants were previously assigned agencies for testing. Will be discussed at Thursday's engineering team meeting (first meeting after holiday cancellations).
  • Global Option to Skip Households If Choice Simulation Fails (Issue #892) - Awaiting Jeff Newman's review
  • Example SANDAG Model Update (Issue #34) COMPLETE

Product & Community Team Structure Discussion

The team had an extensive discussion about the role, responsibilities, and functioning of the Product & Community Team, building on conversations from the previous week's meeting.

Proposed Responsibilities

The team reached consensus that the Product & Community Team should lead future scoping processes for new feature development, performance enhancements, documentation, and other work. This addresses previous challenges with ad hoc approaches to gathering and prioritizing requirements.

Additional responsibilities discussed include:

• Coordinating with the Executive Team
• Invoice review (currently working well with Bhargav, Lisa, and Zephyr Foundation staff)
• Deliverable review and acceptance
• Triaging and managing GitHub issues
• Updating the project roadmap

No objections were raised to expanding the team's scope to include these areas, though concerns were noted about capacity given current meeting schedules.

Coordination and Meeting Frequency

Current structure provides one hour every three weeks for Product & Community Team meetings, which may be insufficient for expanded responsibilities. The team discussed several options:

Meeting Frequency Options:

• Increase meetings to every other week instead of every three weeks
• Repurpose the all-hands meeting as either a second Product & Community Team meeting or second Executive Team meeting
• Enhance asynchronous coordination to reduce meeting burden

Sumit noted that even weekly hour-long meetings would be insufficient and emphasized the need for asynchronous work. The group agreed to wait for Bhargav's return before finalizing any structural decisions, but to develop proposals for his consideration.

Team Leadership and Decision-Making

Several suggestions emerged for improving efficiency:

• Empower team leaders with authority to make routine, straightforward decisions without full team discussion
• Consider adding co-leaders to provide backup and support
• Escalate complex or ambiguous issues to full team discussions
• Document current decision-making processes and workflows

Jilan Chen emphasized the importance of first identifying specific subtasks and assigning them to subgroups before determining meeting frequency and structure. Once responsibilities are clearly mapped, time requirements will become clearer.

Consultant Participation

The engineering team has naturally become more consultant-led, while the Product & Community Team tilts toward agency leadership and direction. The team acknowledged this pattern but did not resolve specific questions about consultant roles in Product & Community Team activities.

Outstanding Questions

Dave Ory clarified that the motivation for issue triage was addressing the backlog of approximately 170 past issues, not managing incoming issues.

Drew Cooper asked for clarification on team membership. Current Product & Community Team members are documented in the Phase 11 team structure document in the Google Drive under Admin.

Action Items

1. Zephyr Foundation - Send email reminder about TRB reception award acceptance opportunity
2. Zephyr Foundation - Document 11B task status document based on meeting feedback
3. Engineering Team - Discuss second round of UX testing outreach at Thursday's meeting
4. Jeff Newman - Review pending pull requests (alternative file formatting, shadow price zones, skipping households)
5. Jeff Newman - Continue troubleshooting SANDAG Sharrow crashes and coordinate with SANDAG on testing
6. Jeff Newman - Complete review and merging of remaining 11B tasks, then focus on testing documentation
7. Executive Team - Conduct post-TRB review of team structures and functioning
8. Zephyr Foundation & Team Leaders - Work with Bhargav to map out detailed team responsibilities and decision-making processes
9. Zephyr Foundation - Document current decision and process flow for team operations
10. All - Provide input on repurposing all-hands meeting and meeting frequency preferences

Next Meetings

• Thursday - Engineering Team meeting (first after holiday break)
• Next Tuesday - Executive Team meeting (currently scheduled, will confirm agenda and cancel if insufficient items)
• TRB Week - ActivitySim lunch and Zephyr reception with award presentation