Change Approval Process and Website Ownership

Introduction

As our organization growsgrows, inso size,does wethe continuenumber to add moreof internal services thatwe need to be maintained.maintain. The Stevens Blueprint website is one of thesesthese services. Now that the website has beenreached completed,a stable version, we need ana lightweight approval process to ensure future changes align with our design principles, organizationorganizational message,messaging, and technical requirements.standards.

In thesoftware Software Development space there isdevelopment, the concept of "owning"service services.ownership Teamsis ofcommonly Software Engineers ownused—where a serviceteam and areis responsible for buildingbuilding, new features, maintenance, fixing bugs,maintaining, and answeringsupporting questions on thata service. ThisWe conceptpropose shouldadopting bethis introducedmodel towithin BlueprintBlueprint, starting with the Website.website.

This document introduces a formal approval processworkflow 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 three groups involved in the approval process:

• The VPs of Technology will create an internal team and assign ownership of the website to that team (Website Team)
• The VP of Design and Design Team will also be assigned ownership (Design Team)
• All pull requests (PRs) that involve visual changes to the Website. This ensures that any changes align with the Design principles of the website and are representative of our organization. This also adds accountability to ensure new changes don't break the website and 

  The VP of Technology will assemble internal team(s). A PR must at least be approved by a1 member of thisthe teamWebsite Team and a1 member of the Design Team.

for
• All itPRs 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 gothe through.Blog Bug Fixes canmust be given priority to only one approvalapproved by anthe owningVP member.
  of Marketing and 1 member of the Website Team

Design Principles

Tests

Analytics

Tangible Things

Add branch protection that mandates approvals from the respective teams for PR approval.

https://docs.github.com/en/repositories/managing-your-repositorys-settings-and-features/customizing-your-repository/about-code-owners 

Discord Channel for #website team and a #public-website channel for any Blueprint members to raise concerns or discussion.

Steps:

1. Create a team in the org and add members (follow lowecase kebab case: "team-cappucino")
2. Create a branch protection set and mandate review from codeowners
3. Create a CODEOWNERS files in the .github directory of the repository