Loomio
Fri 10 Oct 2014 12:15AM

What kind of culture, and systems do we want in this loomio group?

ST Simon Tegg Public Seen by 189

I've been thinking a bit about this loomio group and Derek's and Kurt's recent comments.

My sense is that we need a shared understanding of processes in this group. Forming working groups in specific areas (which already seems to be happening in the Linked Data discussion) is one active idea. Another one is regular (monthly) updates from different teams.

Sitting behind these are cultural practices like the way we communicate with each other.

What kind of practices do you think would be valuable for us?

ST

Simon Tegg Fri 10 Oct 2014 12:19AM

I came across this little blog post the other day and the follwing quote seemed relevant.

"The ideal forum is when a bunch of people who are individually working away on their own personal projects--whether songwriting or photography or any other endeavor--get together to share knowledge. Each participant has a vested interest, because he or she needs to deliver results first, and is discussing it with others only second."

CS

Caroline Smalley Fri 10 Oct 2014 12:52AM

@simontegg: possible to set up a cobudget account for proposing jobs with related budgets for integration tasks? is part of what I'm wanting to help fund through sponsored hangouts. why not get the process started now? get the wishlist going in a way that enables us to discuss proposed solutions in open / transparent way. @joshuavial ?

ST

Simon Tegg Fri 10 Oct 2014 8:59PM

@carolinesmalley cobudgeting tasks is possible.
But I was thinking at a more basic level. Specifically to how this loomio group functions.

For example, there are currently 3 subgroups: Stakeholder needs, Interface Design and Technical. They're not used very much. Perhaps, these aren't appropriate? Perhaps there are others that would be more appropriate?

I also notice that I am starting the most of the discussions, and the discussions often wander over a variety of different topics. This can make the group hard to engage with for the casual reader, and harder for the group to come to clear outcomes.

I am suggesting that if we had smaller, more focused, actively-used subgroups we could be more effecive.

Related: http://www.businessinsider.com/science-behind-jeff-bezos-pizza-rule-2014-9?IR=T

AI

Alanna Irving Sat 11 Oct 2014 4:15AM

I think I'd like to see some clarity around who is here, what they are working on or interested in, and how the group as a whole could support subgroups to effectively work on various areas of the ecosystem in ways that complement each other.

For example, people focused focused on technical research could be guided by outputs from a group exploring on the conceptual/philosophical level, and could create outputs like guidelines that other groups working on specific software implementations could use as a resource. To get different groups forming, they need more of an identity around what's bringing them together, how they want to function, and what their goals are.

To complement and resource other groups in the ecosystem we'd need subgroups to do good communications, reporting back, etc. It's an interplay between looking at the big picture, and focusing down on achieving something specific.

As I typed that out, it occurred to me that many of us have spend a long time building up an ecosystem with exactly the supports needed to facilitate autonomous groups brought together by shared values to collaborate and enhance each other's work, including communications, pooling finances and funding shared projects, and leveraging a shared brand and network to have bigger reach and opportunities. It's called Enspiral.

Is there a reason why OpenApp wants to be separate? Because it seems like we'd need to redundantly reproduce a lot of the same structures for OpenApp subgroups as already exist at Enspiral.

AX

Apostolis Xekoukoulotakis Sat 11 Oct 2014 10:05AM

I would suggest to start from a specific problem and then split it into its sub parts etc. The root of this tree should have the goals of each project, and at the leaves, we would have the code. All discussion should be technical, even when we talk about the goals.

The point where we start having an opinion is the boundary of our ignorance. Since we are all ignorant of many things, the lure for discussion is big.
But ignorance goes away with experimentation. We do things, we find where they fail and we fix them or rebuilt them.

For this to work, it must be possible to create subgroups of subgroups and preferably allow all to be able to join by default.

BH

Bob Haugen Sat 11 Oct 2014 10:33AM

@alanna - how do most of the people in Enspiral think about the OpenApps Ecosystem?
As part of Enspiral?
As something started in Enspiral that wants to be bigger than Enspiral (like, Enspiral would be part of it but not the only part and it might go global)?
As a distraction from getting the daily work done which is not about OpenApps but about existing software products?
Something else? All of the above depending on who is talking?

And what do you think of the discussion around it so far? I'm trying to parse some of the comments from Enspiral people and wanting not to do the wrong thing. I feel like I'm in Enspiral's house and possibly misbehaving.

AI

Alanna Irving Sat 11 Oct 2014 8:21PM

@bobhaugen a bit of all of the above, I think! There's never one answer to "what does Enspiral think" because there will always be diverse perspectives, all of which are valid.

I think this take is probably common:

As something started in Enspiral that wants to be bigger than Enspiral (like, Enspiral would be part of it but not the only part and it might go global)?

I don't think you're in "Enspiral's House" at all, really. We are more of a bazaar than a house. Enspiral functions more like an open source project itself - you can make a pull request and join the main branch, or fork it and do something else using the parts of the structure that you like, or whatever you want really. There will likely be subgroups and projects that exist in the OpenApp ecosystem and are vary much part of Enspiral, and others that aren't.

If OpenApp did want to reproduce many of the structures we've developed to facilitate internal collaboration, but not be part of Enspiral per se, that's totally fine - I'm just concerned that there might be needless redundancy in doing so since everyone has limited time and resources, and there's a real benefit to joining something already ongoing instead of reinventing the wheel - but only if that's right for the project.

One thing I'm excited about with OpenApp is that it seems to be a magnet for other groups and people outside Enspiral to come together around these ideas, and there's potential for some of their DNA to come into Enspiral. I want us to share what we're doing, but also learn a lot from what others are doing. There's a technical side to all of this, but personally I think the real powerful stuff is about pioneering new group processes to facilitate effective open and decentralised collaboration in conscious ways.

BH

Bob Haugen Sat 11 Oct 2014 8:25PM

@alanna - "One thing I’m excited about with OpenApp is that it seems to be a magnet for other groups and people outside Enspiral to come together around these ideas,"

Yes! That's us.

ST

Simon Tegg Sat 11 Oct 2014 11:31PM

@alanna I lean towards the more open end with "subgroups and projects that exist in the OpenApp ecosystem and are vary much part of Enspiral, and others that aren’t."

I think there are identity issues with having the ecosystem almost wholly within enspiral. There are groups and people with established identities. if the locus was within enspiral they might feel less ownership and this would limit scale and contribution. This happens a fair bit in open-source projects when the code is hosted by an established company.

#whatisenspiral
I would characterise Enspiral as small-to-medium teams and companies with a medium-to-strong shared common identity. Supported by cultural practices that support this identity (retreats etc), and reaping the benefits that come from this.

I was thinking of the ecosytem as an experiment to see if small teams with a small-to-medium shared identity where we "just agree where we intersect" could scale with a deliberately lighter touch on the organisational side.

ST

Simon Tegg Sun 12 Oct 2014 1:29AM

I would also add that I think we're doing ok, its just that the outcome-focused comms aren't so publicly visible whereas the "blue-sky" and "visions" focused comms are.

For example, the main area we need to "agree where we intersect" is on vocab. This working group is already up and running and producing outputs, despite sub-optimal usage of loomio ;). I take this as a good sign.

Another area of coordination is building microservices, components and tooling to support the ecosystem. Colab.coop peeps and other contributors are interested in this side, but coordination comms with them and within openappjs are through hipchat, email, hangouts, and github issues.

If different groups made a commitment to form subgroups, and consolidate reporting back to the main group, I believe we could get ease the main tensions people might be feeling.

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