Community Project Management Working Group

[jtorreggiani]

Introduction

This RFC introduces a proposal for a Community Project Management Working Group (CPMWG) to manage and coordinate projects developed in collaboration between SPEC, Open Collective (OC), OpenProducer and other collectives in the OC ecosystem.

The primary of objectives of this RFC are to:

1. Identify the Directly Responsible Individuals (DRIs) from SPEC, OC, and OpenProducer for contributing to the CPMWG.
2. Define a functional scope and charter for CPMWG.
3. Determine the initial staffing needs, i.e required capacities and estimated number of hours of a community project manager(s).
4. Develop a budget and identify available and potential funding sources.

Overview

For the Q1 fiscal quarter, SPEC with support from the OC community would hire 1 - 2 part-time community project managers (CPM). The primary responsibilities of the CPM would be the following.

1. Gather requirements from community stakeholders.
2. Collaborate with DRIs and individual contributors (IC) to develop project plans.
3. Review, categorize, prioritize and create project issues on Github.
4. Write documentation and manage Github project boards.
5. Facilitate of communication and coordination between community stakeholders.
6. Follow up on project work, report on project status, and communicate project risks to the DRIs.

SPEC would be responsible for onboarding, training, and managing CPM(s). CPM(s) will report to a manager at SPEC and maintain professional working relationships with stakeholders at OC, Open Producer, and partnering collectives. The OC community would be responsible for collaborating with the CPM(s) to develop and implement project plans, with an eye for creating a welcoming, inclusive, and enriching work environment for SPEC contributors.

Estimated Budget

For Q1 2022, SPEC's base pay rate for contributors is $20 USD per hour. Leads at SPEC currently make $24.04 per hour. SPEC's compensation structure has been developed collaboratively and is designed to provide equitable compensation for contributors while balancing budgetary constraints. SPEC's team aims to reevaluate and increase pay rates based on availability of funding, organizational performance, contributor feedback, and competitiveness. For more information about SPEC's compensation structure please see the docs page.

The rates for the CPM(s) would depend on their experience, training requirements, and level of support from DRIs, ICs, and SPEC mentors. Based on SPEC's pay bands, 1 part-time CPM working 20 hours per week, would cost approximately $1600 to $1923 per month. It would cost between $4800 and $5769 to cover a part-time CPM for all of Q1 2022. Two part-time contributors is would cost between $9,600 and $11,538 for the quarter.

A single full-time contributor would cost the same a 2 part-time contributors, plus additional fees required to cover employment and benefits through the Open Collective Foundation (OCF). In order to hire a full-time contributor through SPEC/OCF, we would need to feel confident on the long-term need for the CPM and sustainability of funding. OCF typically expects for collectives to maintain 3 - 6 months of funds to cover full-time employee salaries.

Questions

• What are the primary roles and responsibilities of the working group DRIs?
• How much funding is currently available between SPEC, OC, and the broader community?
• Is there immediate work that CPM(s) could start helping out with as part of onboarding?
• What are the first couple of projects we imagine the CPM(s) would start contributing to?
• Are there any duties or responsibilities that should be includes as part of the CPM job description?

[gusaus]

Hey @jtorreggiani - circling back to this issue as we've entered Q2 with an ever-increasing need for project managers (and other roles) SPEC could provide. Here are a few different areas where needs and opportunities have already been identified. I also tried to outline some of the assumptions, needs, and blockers.

Assumptions

• projects are vetted and would not move forward until funding goals have been met
• SPEC resources (contributor time and funds) would be recouped from project work
• talent can be acquired from within the open source communities associated with the project
• compensation and rates should be competitive

Projects

Open Collective

• Project lead: entity (OSC, OCF) and working group associated with the project (if applicable)
• Talent: #oanm-collaboration
• Primary Working group(s): #opensource, #ocf
• Projects
  • Open Collective bounty candidates
  • TBD code and documentation projects we suggest

Large Open Source Projects

• Project lead: the open source project/collective associated with the project
• Talent: the open source community associated with the project
• Primary Working group(s): working groups in Open Collective and within the associated open source community
• initiatives/Projects
  • WordPress Traning team
    • Newspack (workshops and training)
    • do_action
  • Drupal Open Learning
  • Drupal Funding module (and WordPress equivalent)
  • Drupal Contribution Events Initiative
  • several more are being proposed or vetted

Open source provider projects (OpenProducer, SPEC, etc.)

• Project lead: the 'open service' provider associated with the project (SPEC, OpenProducer, etc.)
• Talent: #oanm-collaboration
• Primary Working group(s): #openproducer, #SPEC (we need a channel)
• Projects (contributing and sustaining)
  • Newspack
  • AzuraCast
  • LibreTime
  • Radio Station plugin
  • SPEC (internal tech and processes)
  • OpenProducer (internal tech, processes, and customer/partner projects)

Needs / Blockers

• a process for contributing, collaborating, and funding Open Collective projects (this 'could' be a project we propose along with https://github.com/opencollective/opencollective/issues/1996)
• compensation and rates defined and posted (could work out in https://github.com/specollective/collaboratory/issues/3)
• budget to identify and acquire talent, solidify partnerships, engage communities, fundraise, and other essential activities around securing and completing projects

[gusaus]

@jtorreggiani With regards to this section of your overview -

For the Q1 fiscal quarter, SPEC with support from the OC community would hire 1 - 2 part-time community project managers (CPM). The primary responsibilities of the CPM would be the following.

Are the job opening(s) posted here related? If yes, does that mean they could work on some of the projects I've outlined in https://github.com/specollective/collaboratory/issues/1#issuecomment-1089291311?

[gusaus]

@jtorreggiani As noted in this Slack discussion I was thinking this OFC hosted group (opportunity post here) could be a good candidate online/in-person hackathons using the type of format I previously mentioned in this OpenProducer discussion.

Considering there are other OCF hosted groups with folks in the Bay area (of course, it's not possible yet to filter on location) we may have an opportunity and reason to help get both an Open Collective and OpenProducer user group up and running in the area. With "Support Regional Organizers" mentioned as a OCF strategic priority , I do think there's an opportunity to take on the community organizer guide task (for a bounty) and then repurpose the guide for our own communities. At the same time, I think we'll receive resources (local organizers and/or funds) from our association with OCF.

If we can remove the following blocker, I could continue to spend time locking down these partnerships and collaborations.

budget to identify and acquire talent, solidify partnerships, engage communities, fundraise, and other essential activities around securing and completing projects

[gusaus]

@jtorreggiani I shared the following bit of discussion with Ruth, project lead of Mautic about tools and processes for enabling/measuring contributions in Open Collective's #opensource channel.

After watching your FOSDEM 2022 talk :raised_hands:, I definitely think there are tools/processes we (and other open source projects looking to enable community) could use AND also contribute to. Especially anything revolving around improvements to #Drupal and Open Collective (tools and/or integrations).

Also shared in #openproducer and provided some context.

Sharing here as the 'we' I'm referencing are projects and contributors OpenProducer is collaborating with in this channel. :mega:

Reason I'm mentioning here (oh ya, do you think we could convert this and https://github.com/specollective/collaboratory/issues/3 into Github discussions?) is I think contributing to Mautic could be an ongoing opportunity for SPEC. Not only do they have a mechanism for paying contributors, any tools we help build or improve can be used to enable and sustain our own projects and communities (SPEC and OpenProducer). Considering Mautic is an Acquia company (the latter founded by Dries, creator of Drupal) any collaboration would provide SPEC contributors a high profile entry point for training and job opportunities in the Drupal ecosystem.

So we can this to the list of projects/partnerships I could help solidify and move forward on behalf of SPEC (if y'all could use the help and I was enabled). https://github.com/specollective/collaboratory/issues/1#issuecomment-1089291311

[gusaus]

Develop a budget and identify available and potential funding sources.

@jtorreggiani Curious what the status is of this very important objective. As noted in https://github.com/specollective/collaboratory/issues/1#issuecomment-1089291311 and this related discussion https://github.com/specollective/collaboratory/issues/1#issuecomment-1089291311 there are quite a few projects on the table with a variety of needs.

Assuming the fully fleshed out budget (along with other goals/objectives mentioned here and https://github.com/specollective/collaboratory/issues/3) has been slow going due to lack of time on your part (or anyone else currently on SPEC), I'd like to suggest you identify roles needed to complete priority internal tasks as well as projects (current and potential).

IF I was enabled (via a TBD donation to https://opencollective.com/openproducer) I could help do the following on behalf of SPEC:

identify and acquire talent, solidify partnerships, engage communities, fundraise, and other essential activities around securing and completing projects

If we could also bring in a couple of RAs to help with docs, pm, and the aforementioned areas, the average cost per contributor would be fairly reasonable. Even more so if OCF could also commit resources (people and/or funds).

Again, I don't know SPEC's available budget or you're still planning on donating stock. I do know it would take relatively little $$ to unblock what's been stopping us from collaborating on a steady stream of paying projects.