Merge pull request #5698 from saschagrunert/report

sig-release: Add 2021 annual report

Author: k8s-ci-robot

sig-release/annual-report-2021.md

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+# Kubernetes SIG Release Community Group Annual Reports 2021
+
+This report reflects back on CY 2020 and was written in April 2021.
+
+## Operational
+
+- How are you doing with operational tasks in [SIG]-governance.md?
+  - Is your README accurate? have a CONTRIBUTING.md file?
+    - The README is up to date and accurate, we do not have a CONTRIBUTING.md
+      file.
+  - All subprojects correctly mapped and listed in sigs.yaml?
+    - Yes
+  - What’s your meeting culture? Large/small, active/quiet, learnings? Meeting
+    notes up to date? Are you keeping recordings up to date/trends in community
+    members watching recordings?
+    - We have weekly zoom meetings with a duration of 45min: one for the overall
+      SIG and one for the Release Engineering subproject. Both meetings have ~20
+      people, where sometimes new contributors or members of other SIGs join as
+      well.
+    - We refined the meeting structure to have a fixed 20 minute block to walk
+      our project boards.
+    - There is a timebox of 20minutes for informal status updates, too.
+    - The last 5 minutes are free for open discussion.
+    - Meeting notes are up to date and all meetings are recorded.
+- How does the group get updates, reports, or feedback from subprojects? Are
+  there any springing up or being retired? Are OWNERS.md files up to date in
+  these areas?
+  - The SIG Release meeting serves updates for the release cycle as well as the
+    Engineering subproject.
+  - The release Engineering meeting give more in-depth details about the
+    technical topics within the SIG.
+  - We have an additional agreement how to work together in terms of [Release
+    Engineering](https://github.com/kubernetes/sig-release/tree/master/release-engineering#release-engineering)
+- Same question as above but for working groups.
+  - We do not have any working groups within the SIG.
+- When was your last public community-wide update? (provide link to deck and/or
+  recording)
+  - KubeCon NA 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQuxWeVlrJQ
+
+#### Membership
+
+- Are all listed SIG leaders (chairs, tech leads, and subproject owners) active?
+  - Yes
+- How do you measure membership? By mailing list members, OWNERs, or something
+  else?
+  - Those that are contributing and actively engaged with the meetings.
+- How does the group measure reviewer and approver bandwidth? Do you need help
+  in any area now? What are you doing about it?
+  - We do not actively monitor reviewer/approver bandwidth in a formalized way.
+    We walk the project boards during our meetings and triage incoming issues
+    and PRs in dedicated sessions. We also have to do the cherry-pick reviews
+    for patches, which is done by the release managers in a continuous process.
+- Is there a healthy onboarding and growth path for contributors in your SIG?
+  What are some activities that the group does to encourage this? What programs
+  are you participating in to grow contributors throughout the contributor ladder?
+  - We have the SIG Release Shadowing Program for new members to join the
+    release cycle.
+  - There is the opportunity to become a Release Manager (associate) within the
+    Release Engineering subproject, too.
+  - The SIG has Technical Lead and a Program Manager roles to further support
+    the SIG.
+  - We are actively applying the `good-first-issue` and `help-wanted` labels to issues
+    and are closely mentoring new contributors who pick up these issues.
+- What programs do you participate in for new contributors?
+  - The SIG Release Shadowing program
+- Does the group have contributors from multiple companies/affiliations? Can end
+  users/companies contribute in some way that they currently are not?
+  - Yes, we have multiple avenues for contributing for both code and non-code
+    projects alike.
+
+#### Current initiatives and project health
+
+- What are initiatives that should be highlighted, lauded, shout outs, that
+  your group is proud of? Currently underway? What are some of the longer tail
+  projects that your group is working on?
+  - The introduced Program Manager role is our highlight to keep the SIG making
+    continuously progress
+  - Dedicated issue triage session
+  - Building a North Star Vision Roadmap for long term planning
+  - Continuously enhancing the release cycle timings and tooling around it
+- Year to date KEP work:
+  - [KEP-2572: Release Cadence][kep]
+- What initiatives are you working on that aren't being tracked in KEPs?
+  - Formalize supported release platforms:
+    https://github.com/kubernetes/sig-release/issues/1337
+  - Implement a Bill of Materials (BOM) for release artifacts
+    https://github.com/kubernetes/release/issues/1837
+  - Enhance Kubernetes binary artifact management
+  - Simplify CVE process for release management (Secure)
+    https://github.com/kubernetes/sig-release/issues/896
+    https://github.com/kubernetes/release/issues/1354
+- What areas and/or subprojects does the group need the most help with?
+  - Nothing to mention right now, we're always looking for help in Release
+    Engineering related topics. Beside that we have to assemble a Release Team
+    each cycle which follows its own process.
+- What metrics/community health stats does your group care about and/or measure?
+  - We mainly stick to our project boards
+
+[kep]: https://github.com/kubernetes/enhancements/issues/2572