CHT Squads

How community squads work

What is a squad?

A CHT Squad is a small, action-oriented team that works together to solve high-priority needs for the community. These teams bring together developers, designers, project managers, and other contributors to build and implement new features and improvements for the CHT.

How squads work

When a community-proposed improvement shows potential for broad impact, we invite the wider community to collaborate. Members can express interest in contributing to discussions, design, development, testing and/or funding. Below are the steps how a squad works:

• Collaborative by design: Anyone can join - whether you are an experienced community contributor or just getting started with the CHT
• Transparent process: Regular meetings and shared public notes and documentation to keep everyone informed
• Flexible contributions: Help in whatever way works for you - coding, design, testing, or documentation

Starting a squad: key requirements

For a squad to succeed, dedicated development capacity should be secured upfront. This means:

• Resource Commitment: Interested members can pledge either:
  • Engineering time: Developers with relevant skills committing hours/week, or
  • Funding: Budget to pay community developers (prioritizing CHT contributors).
• Clear Ownership: Squads will be launched when specific developers are identified and onboarded.

If you are interested in forming or starting a squad, here are the steps to follow:

• Share details about the topic/feature to be explored in the squad on the forum to invite other interested community members to join the conversation.
• Reach out to specific community members who have previously discussed the topic or who you think may be interested.
• Reach out to the CHT Stewardship Team to allocate dedicated time during Round-up calls for sharing the initiative with the broader community.

Kick off

• Schedule a public, open meeting with all community members interested in contributing to the initiative.
• The agenda for this meeting should include:
  • Introductions and role clarity.
  • Overview of squad objectives and desired outcomes.
  • Initial task assignments and ownership.
  • Agreement on a recurring meeting cadence (for example, weekly/biweekly calls).
• Establish a communication channel
  • Reach out to the CHT Stewardship Team to create a dedicated Slack channel for squad discussions.
  • Invite all community members who are part of the squad and ensure access is granted promptly.
• Engage advisory roles
  • Extend invitations to domain experts, UX specialists, or other advisors as needed.
  • Clarify their involvement (for example, periodic reviews, feedback sessions) even if they are not full-time contributors.

Why join a squad?

• Work on meaningful projects that make a real difference
• Learn from and collaborate with other community members
• Help shape the future of the CHT

What are the different stages in a squad?

Squads evolve through stages, and anyone can start contributing at any stage - no matter their experience level. Here are the various stages:

1. ✨ Emerging

An idea sparks! The community identifies a feature or improvement with broad potential.

Outputs:

• Exploratory discussions
• Partners and contributors aligned
• The Code of Conduct is shared with all squad members

2. 🧑🏼‍🎨 Early Design Discussion

Feasibility meets vision. Teams explore technical requirements, timelines, and design approaches.

Outputs:

• Wireframes or prototypes
• Resource commitments
• Preliminary scope and timeline

3. 💡 Requirements & Design

Turning ideas into action.

• Initial Deliverable: The squad should collaboratively work on a design document based on the requirements.

• Review Phase: Upon completing the initial draft, pause development to incorporate feedback—share the document on the forum to gather broad community input/feedback.

  Outputs:

  • Documented requirements
  • Clear specs and mockups are finalized for development
  • Approved design doc
  • Technical design doc

Once the first iteration is complete, pause to incorporate feedback by announcing it on the forum for broad community review before proceeding.

4. 🧑🏽‍💻 Development/Building

• Development Kickoff

  • Begin feature implementation once the squad agrees on the design
  • Establish a single, authoritative development branch/workspace
  • Maintain transparency through frequent code pushes to the public repository on GitHub

• Quality Assurance

  • Adhere to coding best practices including:
    • Comprehensive automated testing
    • Strict code quality standards
    • Detailed documentation
  • Conduct ongoing manual testing to identify and resolve issues early

• Collaborative Standards

  • Implement regular code reviews
  • Maintain clear contribution guidelines
  • Schedule periodic sync meetings for coordinating teams

  Output:

  • Working software (GitHub pull requests)

5. 📲 Testing

Ensuring quality. Rigorous manual/automated testing verifies functionality.

Outputs:

• Test reports
• Verified software

6. 🛋️ Review

When the squad confirms that the solution meets the requirements, submit a pull request for review and nominate a CHT maintainer to lead the technical assessment. After passing both technical review and allowing a few days for community feedback, merge the approved code.

Outputs:

• PR posted with testing instructions in the forum for community validation.
• Merged contribution with documented community input.

7. 💪🏼 Release

The functionality is released and ready to create an impact in the real world. Features can be deployed to users.

Output:

• Software release

8. ✅ Done

Mission accomplished. The project meets all goals and the related tasks are marked complete.

When can you join a squad?

See the active squads on the CHT roadmap and subscribe to the CHT calendar to stay up to date with all the CHT events, including the regular squad meetings.