task management, work coordination

[bhaugen]

@gcassel wrote a lot about this topic over in this CTA hackpad: https://cta.hackpad.com/Task-management-functions-YQwSmvYsXVe

Tasks are actually IMO a special case of process. A process may be an indefinitely continuing stream of inputs and outputs, a one-time task, or something in between. The normal use of 'process' IMO implies an ongoing stream of inputs and outputs...

I want to suggest at least one way to think about this in a value flows context: a task is a human work input to a process. More than one person might be working on the same process: thus, more than one task as an input to the same process.

The outputs of that process may be inputs to another process. This is the frame for work coordination. The people working on the next process are calling for the output from this process. And the people who are working on this process are calling for their inputs from the previous process.

So work is properly coordinated P2P, by the people who are working on processes that are parts of a value flow.

This was one of the original insights behind kanbans. The other was pull rather than push. Push means top-down planning by management. Pull means responding to signals from the next process in the flow: ultimately, the processes of end use. I.e. the whole value flow tuned to use value.

If done well, little or no task management should be required. I've seen that happen in manufacturing settings, but not yet in a nouveau P2P setting.

[bhaugen]

P.S. this (above) is why I think that a conversational/notification based UI will be important for value flows. Need overviews for context, but conversations and event notifications for coordination signals. See also, and.

[gcassel]

I agree strongly with your personal input above @bhaugen and I was hoping to respond properly tonight, but I'll fall asleep first. Trying to coordinate my thoughts in an efficient way for this thread.

So glad you're focused on coordination and notifications!

[gcassel]

p.s. I'm looking closely at the task dependency concepts in casual.pm which was on your meeting agenda, and how to integrate that with workflows from ideation through completion, in a fractal model. zzzz

[bhaugen]

We did not discuss casual.pm in the meeting, and I have not looked into it enough to be sure, but it looks like they do the usual direct process dependencies. In NRP, we did not do so, which sometimes frustrated people who are used to thinking that way. I wrote about why we used resource flows instead. It might be an interesting discussion topic for VF some time. It's possible to support both models in a vocabulary, but I did not want to complicate our software to support both.

For a software project, dependencies should be derivable from the software itself, and will be resource flows.

[gcassel]

I emphatically agree that a loose coupling of systems via resource flows is often desirable, scientific and accurate, especially when we're dealing with material resources and data about material resources. The ability to accurately model resource flows will help people to avoid creating false dependencies.

I'll reflect further on communities and social goals below, within this deliberate context: I'm thinking of a generic project management system/tool as something which doesn't necessarily exist inside of Value Flows, nor depend critically upon any other specific communications and organizational tools in an ecosystem.

I've been thinking about the fact that all intentional communities, and projects, can be identified by one or more objectives or goals. (For discussion groups or forums, the goal may be simply to discuss a defined topic.) Our social goals often depend on processes, and tasks, with identifiable inputs and outputs. However, some goals may not seem conducive to accurate modeling. Complex social goals can be really tangled into our lives and our relationships.

It's possible for Value Flows to only (directly) serve goals which can be broken down into clearly identifiable systems of inputs and outputs. Perhaps it should! My reflections on community process, however, have now led me to start with the term 'goal' instead of systems, tasks or processes. I'm currently thinking that 'project' or 'goal'-- depending on the organizational level one is currently viewing-- is the most useful and flexible holon in a fractal system of social organization. By 'holon' here, I mean something which could be identified as 'a card' in an identified workflow from ideation to completion/archiving, but which could also be expanded into its own 'project' in a system which does not impose artificial limits on our organizational complexity.

I'm acutely aware here that organizational complexity and tight dependencies are perilous. I just don't want our available tools to artificially limit our thinking, as they historically have.

For instance, it would be possible for a fractal organizational system to identify 'required processes' and 'required tasks'--dependencies-- for a group's goals which IMO should not be coercively managed and 'owned' by that group, but rather, should be openly coordinated with other groups' required tasks. Over time, such 'inter-networked' goals may (or may not) be clearly identified with some complete system of inputs and outputs.

This is really complex and complicated stuff. For instance, maybe all group goals ultimately can be effectively identified with necessary inputs and expected outputs, on the 'right' level of abstraction. In fact, this is exactly what I want to do with community governance and management models. However, I wouldn't want a generic project management tool to depend on advanced modeling of systems.

Even if a given community or project has one or more objectives which they can't break down completely into a (possibly complex, multi-level) system of inputs and outputs, I expect that they often will identify 'required processes' and 'required tasks' which could be completely and effectively modeled with Value Flows. That seems crucially important to me.

[bhaugen]

My focus is economic networks. So I want to make sure that whatever people are working on, they can internetwork with other people who are working on complementary (whatever). Because I think we as a species need that right now.

[gcassel]

@bhaugen I know you're super-concerned with value accounting in networks (and inter-networks) of autonomous peers-- and I'm so glad that you are. In addition to that, I'm personally trying to model relationships between parent groups and subgroups/ teams which they entrust with coercive authority over plans which the parent group/ community has budgeted towards. I also want to model for cases where a community budgets for solo work by specific contractors or designers.

Does that seem to go beyond the stuff you want to focus on in the foreseeable future? Of course it's fine if it does; I'm just curious. The concept of collective investment in subgroup and solo activity needs to be part of my thinking. Naturally, that affects my potential systems and workflow structures on different scales of a complex community or project-- but I'm not trying to impose my conceptual goals on anyone else.

[bhaugen]

@gcassel - don't take my personal focus for the whole scope of Value Flows.

I'm personally trying to model relationships between parent groups and subgroups/ teams

@fosterlynn , @ahdinosaur and @simontegg in VF and Holodex have worked hard on a simple but flexible model for nested groups of any kind. Budgets should be expressible in VF vocabs. And processes are also nestable, although we haven't done anything with that yet, as far as I know.

We have a friend and collaborator, who has unfortunately been ill, who has done a lot of thinking about governance in value networks. And another who has been focused on reputation (altho I am personally wary of reputation schemes). Lots of other projects, for example in the Collaborative Technology Alliance, are looking at governance and reputation in different ways. So that will all fit in, sooner or later.

I also think that all of the purely social network relationships and conversations swirl in and out of purely economic relationships and conversations, but so many other people are focusing on those that I am reluctant to go there as somebody who is much less interested in them (although my disinterest is probably a personal weakness).

[gcassel]

Thanks much for the added perspective @bhaugen . I realize you don't present your personal focus as the scope of Value Flows: you're quite good IMO at not mis-representing things. :)

I like the term 'nested group' because it seems accessible and accurate for many typical (and often unfair) organizational structures. I'm interested in any VF and/or Holodex nested group models, of course-- and in any group structures which spawn 'un-nested' initiatives.

For instance, I like the idea of community projects--such as the Collaborative Technology Alliance Seal concept-- spawning their own granulated, per-person 'memberships' both inside and outside of the community in question. That could relate to lots of creative possibilities in per-project equity and voting models, which can be additionally be related to peer production resource accounting. I'll try to bend my brain that way as we move on.

I'm trying to bridge social and economic stuff, but I definitely think we need more people focusing mostly if not entirely on economic relationships and conversations. So many people seem to focus entirely on social and political talk-- and when they do talk about money and material resources, it often seems so righteous and pointless, I could practically pull my hair out.

[ahdinosaur]

I'm interested in any VF and/or Holodex nested group models

see valueflows/agent for where we're at.

and in any group structures which spawn 'un-nested' initiatives

hmm, not sure what you mean. would you be able to unpack that more, perhaps as an issue in the above repo?

[gcassel]

see valueflows/agent for where we're at.

Great point-- I somehow lost track of how relevant that is, during my focus on processes and task management.

hmm, not sure what you mean. would you be able to unpack that more, perhaps as an issue in the above repo?

I'm not sure it'll be an issue, but yep I'll think about it. Superficially and sleepily, I think the basic Agent vocab is fine for groups which 'granulate' or inter-network at different levels of organization. Perhaps it can cover all cases where a given group (collective Agent) consists of totally equal peers. I'm additionally concerned with nuanced governance and ownership of collective resources, such as variable personal equity in collective financial returns and group decision-making-- but surely that's not part of a basic vocabulary?
zzzz..zzz...zz

[bhaugen]

@gcassel

I'm additionally concerned with nuanced governance and ownership of collective resources, such as variable personal equity in collective financial returns and group decision-making-- but surely that's not part of a basic vocabulary?

We haven't dealt with governance yet. Ownership is a relationship between an agent (which could be a collective agent, like a commons org) and a resource. Equity is also a resource owned by an agent. (In both cases, where "ownership" might mean "a bundle of specified rights". All of those will be part of the VF vocab.

Handling of financial returns is part of a value equation, which is a key part of governance. Value equations are part of the NRP software. I don't know whether we will define them in VF, but they will be a use case for the VF model and vocab. The relationships are the same as provenance.

[fosterlynn]

I think the basic Agent vocab is fine for groups which 'granulate' or inter-network at different levels of organization. Perhaps it can cover all cases where a given group (collective Agent) consists of totally equal peers.

@gcassel This is true. But it can also work for a group that has not so "equal" peers. You can define any types of relationships you want between agents. So you can use that structure to define different roles in the group or organization (among other things). Like if you have a more committed inner circle of members and an outer looser circle of contributors (like Enspiral, but I may have the wrong names), you can set those up as types of relationships and assign people to one or the other type of relationship with the group agent. Or our local herbal network has harvesters, drying sites, etc. In other words, every relationship that a person has with the organization has a type. Every relationship any kind of agent has with any other kind of agent has a type. The types can be defined by the group or network itself. It would work for a totally hierarchical organization if you actually wanted it to.

[gcassel]

Thanks very much @fosterlynn and @bhaugen for your very helpful feedback here, and your orientation assistance in general-- much appreciated.

Lynn, I definitely see how the Relationship types can describe any groups of not so equal peers. My sleepy comment was vague and partially misguided: I was imagining that we could include a list of equal peer members in the description of an Agent which is a Group-- but, I believe that'd be a really messy mistake... we should be fractally 'zooming in' to examine any membership and organizational info for a collective Agent by double-clicking it, right?

[gcassel]

I think Relationships can typically be informally identified/described by one or more of the involved parties. In my 'agreement-based organization' model , Agreements could always be used to formally describe Relationships. Depending on the verbosity of each written Agreement, it could be fully contained in linked data, or be briefly described (possibly including a hyperlink).

[fosterlynn]

@gcassel makes sense we should support short and long (informal and formal, probably other descriptions) to describe relationship types. Not sure yet how to represent in the vocab since an agreement could describe many types of relationships, as well as a bunch of other things.... But I'm sure we can do it. And I like the hyperlink thought. Probably need some research on the model for agreements; there has been a lot of work on contracts; as well as some model based analysis of your paper and others. I'd personally tend to put this off until later, in favor of working on the core, and count on others with more expertise. If you want to spearhead it at some point, that would be great! :)

[gcassel]

Yes, I'd agree @fosterlynn it should be low priority for VF on the whole compared to other core vocabularies, including Economic Event. It may be relatively high priority for me personally in VF -- however, economic Commitment vocab deserves extensive reviews of contract theory and law.

makes sense we should support short and long (informal and formal, probably other descriptions) to describe relationship types.

Hey that's really interesting....

1. do you think my (informal) distinction of 'guidelines/rules' may be close to your above conception of 'informal/formal'?
2. do you think there would be much, if any, difference between 'formal agreement' (in your sense above) and 'Commitment'?

[fosterlynn]

@gcassel don't know yet, and honestly can't switch over to study it right now. But if you decide to focus on this in VF, I'll gladly comment on your work and collaborate in a secondary role where my skill set fits.

[bhaugen]

economic Commitment vocab deserves extensive reviews of contract theory and law.

Do you have the background for that? If not, I know people who do, and whom we could contact at the right time.

In the meantime, here's something on contract theory from a computing perspective that is compatible with VF vocabs and (curiously) has also been used in derivatives contracts: http://www.itu.dk/people/elsborg/sttt06.pdf

And then there's this from your friendly finance capitalists: http://www.omg.org/spec/EDMC-FIBO/BE/1.0/Beta1/index.htm

It is also compatible with VF vocabs, believe it or not.

And here's something with a bunch of contract law guidelines for ecommerce, that is also compatible with VF vocabs: http://www.ebxml.org/specs/bpPATT_print.pdf

A great contract lawyer, Jamie Clark, helped to write that one.

So why are all of these things compatible with VF vocabs, you ask? Because VF vocabs have in their DNA the ISO Accounting and economic ontology which had a lot of international experts in this stuff working on it. And most of that other stuff was either a predecessor or successor to the ISO standard.

[gcassel]

Do you have the background for that? If not, I know people who do, and whom we could contact at the right time.

I definitely do not have the legal background to vet the compatibility of VF Commitment vocab with contract theory and law. I know a couple of lawyers who may be willing to review suggested definitions and models for free, for a good cause like VF, but it sounds like you may have that covered.

My main focus is open intentional communities which are not legal entities, using written agreements which are not legal contracts, along with reputation systems and/or local currencies to organically grow their collective value.

I do think that commitments are essentially a type of agreement, and I think there should be flexible vocabulary for formal agreements which are 'rules' but not legally suggestive or binding contracts... but, I'm unlikely to have much time to look closer at that (or your excellent links) in the immediate future.

I'm really glad that VF is already essentially in sync with ISO so far.

[bhaugen]

I know a couple of lawyers who may be willing to review suggested definitions and models for free, for a good cause like VF, but it sounds like you may have that covered.

We don't have that covered now, but I do understand that prior DNA reasonably well because I helped to create it. But IANAL nor am I a contract expert.

We can get help down the road from some members of the REA community, some of whom have already looked at what we are doing. I want to save explicit requests for deeper involvement until I think we are ready, but other people might want to think about the timing, too. Right now, the only thing I think is ready is the people and organization model, which does not matter much to REA.

Re lawyers, I am pretty sure Jamie Clark will not be available to us, unfortunately. He wrote (most of) that previous paper as the lawyer for the OASIS consortium, which was a sponsor of the ebXML project. I do know of another open-source-friendly contract lawyer that I could ask if we really needed one, but your lawyer contacts might come in handy some time.

[almereyda]

We have moved the ValueFlows organization from GitHub to https://lab.allmende.io/valueflows.

This issue has been closed here, and all further discussion on this issue can be done at

https://lab.allmende.io/valueflows/forum-valueflo-ws/-/issues/50.

If you have not done so, you are very welcome to register at https://lab.allmende.io and join the ValueFlows organization there.