Change Approval Process and Website Ownership

Introduction

As our organization grows, so does the number of internal services we maintain. The Stevens Blueprint website is one of these services. Now that the website has reached a stable version, we need a lightweight approval process to ensure future changes align with our design principles, organizational messaging, and technical standards.

In software development, the concept of service ownership is commonly used—where a team is responsible for building, maintaining, and supporting a service. We propose adopting this model within Blueprint, starting with the website.

This document introduces a formal approval workflow for website changes. It ensures changes reflect our design values, maintain technical stability, and uphold our public-facing brand. It also adds accountability and reduces the likelihood of breaking the website.

Approval Process

There are 3 groups that will have ownership of the Website:

1. The VPs of Technology will create an internal team and assign ownership of the website to that team (Website Team)
2. The VP of Design and Design Team will also be assigned ownership (Design Team)
3. The VP of Marketing will also be assigned ownership (Marketing Team)

• All pull requests (PRs) should pass the automated checks (build, tests, linting/formatting)
• All PRs that involve visual changes to the website must be approved by 1 member of the Website Team and 1 member of the Design Team.
• All PRs that that do not involve visual changes (i.e analytics or documentation) may be approved by 1 member of the Website Team
• All PRs that involve changes to the Blog must be approved by 1 member of hte Marketing Team and 1 member of the Website Team

Implementation

• Create Teams on the Blueprint Organization GitHub. For teams we should follow a standardized naming schema with kebab case: i.e ("team-latte"). This will make it easier to assign code owners through GitHub. Add all members of the respective team, including the VPs as approving members.
  
• Add a CODEOWNERS file: The CODEOWNERS file can be placed in the .github directory of a repository. You can specify individuals or teams to own different parts of the code. Read the CODEOWNER docs for more information.
• Add a branch protection: Create a branch protection rule that targets the main branch. Enable the option "Require review from Code Owners" to enforce the ownership you created in the CODEOWNERS file.
  
• Discord Channels: At some companies, they have a private channel for the team to communicate and a public channel for any members of the organization to discuss changes, bugs, or raise issues. For example, say "team-latte" owns the Blueprint website. There would be a #team-latte channel for the team to discuss things like assigning issues, reviewing PRs, etc. There would be also be a #team-latte-public channel for any members to mention bugs or bring up potential recommendations.

Design Guidelines

TODO: Design Team should review and write out these guidelines

The website was designed with 3 Audiences in mind:

1. Stevens Students
2. Non-Profit Organizations
3. Coporate Sponsors/Partners

Assets, Color Schemes, and fonts can be found on the Figma