masterchief wrote:
My 2c
General comment - in the main document, do not ever use dot-points. Always use some nomenclature, even if it's a), i), whatever.
1.1.1 I think the directory services (JED et al) should be explicitly spelled out in the areas covered by the CLT.
1.1.3 The use of the team "weak" sounds like a translation problem. I would use the term "lightweight".
3.1.3.3 & 3.1.3.4 I think it's good to acknowledge that leadership roles need to be shared. However, I don't think you need the overhead of knowing who is the leader and who is the assistant leader. I'd suggest combining this into just "Team Leaders" where this is a number greater than or equal to 1 but preferably 2.
3.2.1 needs to be completely re-worked. Each department needs a solid role or job description.
Thank you for your feedback on these items. The structure team will take this advice into account and process it in the final proposal.
masterchief wrote:
1.1 PLT and CLT came from the Community Oversight Committee. OSM has always been there.
brian wrote:
I was there - it is my name as one of the three on the legal documents that created OSM - that is simply not factually correct and repeating the myths told at the JWC LT summit about the founding of joomla
We apologise for any incorrect remarks and will rectify it as good as we can. As already commented while some things are factual and can be looked up in documents, other history is based on how it was written down - people remember things differently. Truth is always depending on perception, looking to it from different angles and the factor time can also be of influence. For this topic, let’s aim to have the history as far as it concerns and addresses issues related to structure in this proposal as correct as we can.
masterchief wrote:
3.1.3.5 I don't advise going to the trouble of defining sub-teams. Just keep the teams "flat" otherwise it's just going to be a distraction when people are worrying whether they are a team or a sub-team. If a team need sub-teams - split the team.
In the former proposal that was shared with the working groups, there was a discussion about sub-teams and voting rights. It was perceived as not fair if all these sub-teams would have team leaders with the same voting rights similar to the team leader of a parent team. This is why we felt we needed to add the definition to the proposal.
masterchief wrote:
3.1.5 While possibly necessary, I'm not convinced you need to mandate it as a team (sounds more like something that should be recommended if the leadership team of the department can't handle the role). If this was code, I'd say just leave the Team class abstract and don't provide a concrete implementation for department coordination (use composition!).
As you mention, “while possibly necessary”. Our reason for defining the team separately comes mainly from the comments in the first proposal where there was only one Department Coordinator defined for each department. To divide the workload, that role was extended to a team with a clear task. Defining it is the way to clarify this in comparison with the former proposal.
masterchief wrote:
3.1.9 Who handles, for example, complaints from JED listers?
4.9 I think it's important to provide a specific section for JED (or similar resource sites) complaints because of the potential impacts on people's livelihood. I also think there should be an SLA on such complaints.
Several Joomla directories/sites do have their own process for complaints already. If a complainer and a directory/site can’t get to an agreement and the complainer wants to bring it to another level, a standard process is currently not in place.
In the new structure, this could be taken to the Department Coordinator first, and if an agreement isn’t achieved to the Ombudsman. With that remark that there are no process/guidelines for the Ombudsman role yet. Subject to be worked on in a next phase.
masterchief wrote:
4.2 Teams seems to be far too heavy. I would keep teams very organic and allow anyone to propose them and just be able to gather like-minded people together without requiring to jump through hoop upon hoop. Any team made up of just contributors should be allowed unless they are not operating (easy to automate winnowing the team list). When you want to have team members, that triggers the requirement to get approval from the department. Keep is simple for people who just want to play around with crazy ideas.
4.3 Following on from 4.2, this section seems completely over engineered. Why not just make "contributors" self-managed. They are non-voting so who cares if they are on the mailing list. If they are being a nuisance then I would suggest that the rules for being a nuisance should apply to everyone equally, regardless of role or stature.
4.4 In contrast, teams with members are where the serious sustainability of the project comes from. Members within teams would have voting rights required for other procedures in the document to operate.
Keep in mind that people are always free to start teams in fact. Playing around with crazy ideas is not forbidden at all. The only difference will be that they’re not part of the structure, as it is with all the rights that come with it. Which at it self doesn’t mean that they can’t become it in time.
masterchief wrote:
If I were you guys, I'd spend the next year *just* working on the volunteer portal and getting the working groups/teams (whatever you want to call them) purring like a well tuned engine. If you can't get communication happening now, this restructure is not going to magically fix that - in fact it will probably make it worse.
Though the initial idea for the volunteer portal was born before we discussed the structure change, and had the purpose to attract more volunteers, at the time we started to discuss the structure proposal it became very clear for us from the start that the volunteer portal could potentially be a huge support for this. It was already in our first proposal, while the volunteer portal wasn’t live yet. It went live at the JWC, where the first version of the proposal on structure change and alternative ideas were presented. It’s absolutely true that restructuring will not magically fix things, communications is one of the important factors here as is the culture within the project in my opinion.
masterchief wrote:
Do the bare minimum to fix the OSM membership stuff, but don't try to fix that by reengineering the structure of the whole project. Maybe that will come later - maybe it won't (if you a lucky).
I have complete faith that you can solve 90% of the perceived problems you think you have within the current PLT and CLT structure, and reducing the board of OSM to the bare minimum required by law.
In 2012 at our joined summit after JAB12 I shared that same faith completely. At that time one of the first proposals for a structure change was on the agenda. We discussed it thoroughly before we voted on it. The proposal was created by some LT members and some community members and presented to the leaders present at that joined summit. It was voted down in the end, and I have to admit I was one who voted against it. My reasoning to vote against it was because I felt very positive about the development of the communication between the 3 Leadership Teams since the summit in July 2011 (where restructuring was launched as an idea). I truly was convinced that we could solve the problems the natural way and grow to be a well tuned machine. That was 3 years ago, and it didn’t happen. I scratched my head many times trying to figure out why not. Is it the people, the turn over in teams, perception of history, a mix of all those things? I might come up with some answers, and someone else with another set of suggestions on the why it didn’t happen. Fact is, to me it seems from time to time now that we are rather going backwards then growing towards this more unified leadership.
To me the problem isn’t fixed by just having the membership stuff fixed within OSM. It is much more than that. Keys for me are the way we evolved since 2010, from almost not allowing any community input to wanting it but not having the proper tools and processes in place to actually make that happen. From being closed to the community to trying to open up to it, but also to each other as Leadership teams. Today a shared email lists isn’t even a standard, much of the conversation still happens behind closed doors. Not only closed for the community but also for LT members in other teams. Having one part of a discussion behind closed doors and then try to communicate it with another team that needs to be involved, results in frustrations. Many discussions are repeated, a lot of time is wasted and people start to get demotivated because decisions take a long time, ideas get stalled, and we don’t see the development we all would like to see.
All in all I gradually became more convinced that it takes a new structure and not a bandage to overcome those problems. And of course you are right, and a lot said it in here, it won’t magically happen just by doing X. You could just throw out any plan or proposal here, but it all comes down to the people and their willingness to execute it in the way it is intended. What became clear to me over the past years at least is, that even though I trust everyone within the project all the way and am convinced every bone in them intends it the right way, it simply is not going to happen if we maintain the current structure and put some additions to it. We tried that path.
I also hear you when you say, it’s not FUN when we have so many rules, or motions. I would love to have less rules, less procedures, less of everything to make this work. But the plain reality is that we need them in order to trust each other. I am as dumbfounded as you are about
masterchief wrote:
2. For some unknown reason when you get to be on OSM, you are suddenly branded as someone that is not to be trusted and you are most certainly not part of the Joomla community anymore (dumbfounds me every time).
We human beings just seem not to be able to behave without a proper set of rules and need to be guided by procedures and processes. I wish we humans were better creatures.
If I read along in this thread JM already wants to point out how people could be able to abuse a system and why we need rules and guidelines to act on. (on which I will resume in my next post).
Statistics: Posted by MarijkeS — Mon Apr 20, 2015 12:00 pm
via Joomla! http://ift.tt/1HnBvTj
