So, following on from the ‘what teams do we need?’ thread - one thing we certainly need is an overall project structures team.
I think this would be best as a fairly small team - and its remit would just be to put the structures in place to allow everything else to function smoothly - with everyone helping decide which ideas should get tested, and with individual implementation teams making their own decisions about how to do stuff.
Not particularly glamorous work, but vitally important.
‘Not particularly glamorous work’ sounds like me, but I’d need to know more about it, before I volunteer . Can you give us some more information on what it would involve?
My perception at the moment is that we will benefit from making everything as flat as possible - so that people can contribute where and when and how they feel like doing - but that in order for that to work, we’ll need some clear central structures - aka what do we do on the forum? When/how do we switch stuff to Trello? Do we need to use other tools, like Slack for chatting, perhaps? How can we best facilitate groups talking to each other?
We’ve got a dedicated Million Speakers Project area on the forum, and we’ve got a Trello board. This seems to be working okay so far for the initial ideas dump.
Looking ahead, I can see potential value in having a chat space in Slack (just a matter of adding some channels to our existing space) - and Leia’s been trying an interesting decision-making tool…
So the real aims for this core group, I think, are:
to keep a weather eye on how things seem to be going organisationally speaking at the moment
to think about what else will need to happen, and how we might support it
I’m thinking that the ideas generating process is something we will want to maintain - that we always have a fresh flow of ideas coming in - and perhaps via that, a fresh flow of people getting involved. So any fine-tuning we can do there will probably be good - ‘discuss on forum, move good stuff to Trello’ is okay but clunky, so I think there’s room for improvement.
Then we need a decision-making step - which ideas get given a shot.
Then we need a team/project organisation step. Trello and Slack might be a good enough combination for that in the first instance, but maybe we can find something better.
And then perhaps it would be a good idea for us to have a short monthly Skype just to touch base and see if there’s anything that needs fine tuning, or any new suggestions on the horizon?
One thing I’ve learnt from working on projects and teams is the need for actions to have one and only one owner. For example:
Everyone gets a say on the colour the front door will be painted but making sure there’s a decision at the end is the responsibility of the Door Colour owner.
Having more than one owner can result in situations with both people thinking the other person is going to complete the task resulting in no one completing the task.
Excellent point. Trello is quite good for this, with the ability to add people to cards - so if you have a ‘final decision’ card, and someone is added to it, everyone can see who is meant to be signing off. So maybe one way forward with this is to establish the habit of having separate ‘action’ items (in Trello?) for everything that is meant to happen/be decided…?
Another thing to think about is timescales and milestones.
Whilst the 2050 target date is the most generous I’ve seen on a project, it’s probably helpful to have our own targets, measurements and deadlines to keep enthusiasm up and achieve real change.
For example, it’s 4 years until the next census and Welsh Assembly elections.
I’d suggest realistic targets that stretch us a little but not enough to make us despondent if we miss them.
100% agree. Maybe on an idea by idea basis? One of the things I think will be most important early doors will be getting measurable feedback of what we’ve achieved - the effort->measure->result->tell everyone loop was (I believe) a huge part of Avaaz’s early success…
. Can you give us some more information on what it would involve?
