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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 three3 groups involvedthat inwill have ownership of the approval process: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) 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 the1 VPmember of hte Marketing Team and 1 member of the Website Team
    Design PrinciplesImplementation
    Tests
      Analytics
    • Create
      TangibleTeams Things
      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 branchall protectionmembers that mandates approvals fromof the respective teamsteam, 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 inincluding the orgVPs andas addapproving members (follow lowecase kebab case: "team-cappucino")members.
      2. Create a branch protection set and mandate review from codeowners
      3. CreateAdd a CODEOWNERS filesfile: 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 repositorycode. Read the CODEOWNER docs for more information.
      4. 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.
      5. 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

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