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FarsetLabs / somebody-should

A place to collect issues/suggestions/to-do items for the physical space at Farset Labs Belfast
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Organise User Working Groups for time-blocked projects #8

Open andrewbolster opened 5 years ago

andrewbolster commented 5 years ago

We have Directors for long term, cross charity coordination and management, NEMs for vertical oversight, but no structure in place for time bounded or highly focused projects.

Example: @pixelpage raised the idea of improving the electronics prototyping capabilities of the workshop; this may not directly fall under the facility/projects NEM and requires a more focused approach/group.

Need some guidance on the structure/layout/formation of such groups (and names, since dsrkane nixed "subcommittees" due to his presbyterian sensitivities)

pixelpage commented 5 years ago

My thoughts so far:

Farset 'Sub-Committee' Proposal

Name: Working Group [other suggestions?]

Formation: Brought into being by a majority vote of Directors, on a request coming from anywhere (incl external 3rd parties) deemed worthy by the Directors (ie for any reason). Should be time bound and reviewed at the reporting intervals - projects can be extended, re-scoped or canned.

Structure: Should have a leader who is a Farset member, appointed by the Directors. Does not have to have a Director or a NEM in the group (mainly for workload reasons)

Operation: Should have a clearly defined purpose, and be time-limited, which is publicly posted for membership visibility.

Should have clear milestones/objectives (at least in the short term - we could envisage projects where the general direction in the longer term is clear but the shorter term specifics aren't).

Reporting: Reporting requirements should be set up by the Directors at the start (and amended where necessary) - eg by setting a reporting interval.

We may want a single, named, Director to be the nominal main reporting PoC for an individual project so that it doesn't 'fall between the cracks'.

Where there is an overlap with a NEM area, the relevant NEM needs to be included in the reporting loop.

Reporting can be verbal/documented as deemed necessary (maybe published on GitHub?).

Reviewing: The Directors should review projects at the reporting interval. This can be a quick nod-through or a request for the presence of the project leader, as necessary, and reviews can modify or kill projects as deemed appropriate.

Finance: Finance requirements are set at the start - eg a budget or per-item requests. Project finance/expenditure should be fully documented and transparent.

awflwafl commented 5 years ago

This sounds interesting. I'm a fan having the milestones and periodic review of continuation.

@pixelpage Would it be possible to see the 'electronics prototyping capabilities of the workshop' proposal as a sample in this format?

chris18890 commented 5 years ago

I know the folks at @somakeit have a similar structure going with subcommittees for particular projects etc, I'll try to dig out their documentation