In today’s monthly update call we decided to clarify the purpose of these meetings.
These are the notes I made. We would appreciate your additions
These meetings are to
give everyone a chance to report on key happenings in their instance in the last month - this could include new projects started, new funding applied for or won, interesting new users, any help or advice needed, etc
help orientate new instance managers, familiarise them with the global team, offer them support and learn from their perspective of OFN
make plans for the development of OFN both globally and supporting any one instance wanting to develop into new areas
review and plan OFN global budget
review and plan OFN global comms
strengthen the sense of OFN global community - remind ourselves of what an inspiring team we are
Alongside this conversation we also addressed @jen’s question about the purpose of the ATAP meetings and wondered if we could also use this discourse thread to discuss the purpose of both these meetings and whether we it is worth considering combining the 2 meetings?
Just want to urge people who are setting up new instances to comment please!! We really want to make these meetings useful to you – what content do you want on the agenda? What would make you want to attend?
They’re a moment when new instance managers can meet others, ask questions.
They’re a bonding experience as a global community and help build trust with new community members.
It’s good to hear about what’s happening in other instances.
Few people attend. There aren’t representatives from all instances.
When we’ve made changes to the timezone (i.e. the shift we’ve made in recent years so that it’s 9pm Aus time half the year, then 8am the other half of the year) it still hasn’t changed that
Many of the people who hold responsibility for decisions that are based on trust (e.g. when does someone get added to sysadmin pool) don’t attend, which makes it hard for new instances to build the required trust.
Generally not enough people are there to make any meaningful decisions for the community.
No clear agenda ahead of time.
I think we should remove the idea that this is a decision-making space and instead focus entirely on it as a human connection, knowledge and skill-sharing space.
I think each instance should report (either through attendance or a written update) what is happening in their region - significant updates such as funding, new users or alliances, new projects, changes to business models or instance management processes. The focus is on how to run instances.
I think instance managers should be able to ask about what’s coming up in development and have input on that process.
I think information should be shared about global hiring/staffing and budget. (Yes, ‘anyone can look at the spreadsheet’ but it is really meaningless to those outside the pipe in terms of understanding what plans are, what money is likely to land, etc)
(So I guess points 1,2 and 6 from @NickWeir’s original list, and removing the review and plan types of agenda items).
Its a time to connect with each other across instances just to keep that feeling that we are all part of something beyond our own instance. This connection doesn’t easily happen in slack, or discourse…
2. What isn’t working? Or can be things where you’re unsure whether it’s working or not.
Few instances and often no new instances attend - so the people who would benefit from this connection the most are not. So that leaves these meetings less and less useful for more established instances - who need less and less connection time because we’re already working together on various things in different circles…
Because of low attendance, we can’t treat these meetings as a place for consensus building - and we have no other ‘face to face’ time for consensus building anywhere for the whole community - yet we affirm we want to make decisions based on consensus. So its clearly not working currently as a consensus building space.
. What could monthly meetings become?
I think we need 3 different things - and I’m not sure this meeting can do all of them…or where else they happen?
Connection and guidance for new instances – we’ve talked on this elsewhere and made lots of offers. Up until now, these offers weren’t taken by new instances. But I wonder if the global gathering has changed that - we had better new instance participation than ever - maybe we keep this global meeting for a few more months just to see if participation changes post global gathering. But if not - we might conclude that this connection for new instances goal - is not met through this meeting.
Circle coordination and guiding our new governance - I think for this goal - maybe a clear agenda, where each circle, as it gets itself organized gives an update and can seek input if necessary. So we might have an update from the coordination circle on hiring/staffing/budget, from the product/design circle on whats coming up, from the support the support circle - new resources, thorny problems…, etc. I know we don’t have all the circles clearly established yet - so this is aspirational. I think a zoom handles these updates efficiently - there will be too many different circles for everyone to follow for slack/discourse updates alone. So this meeting kind of becomes our ‘coordination circle’ until we have a better process for that.
Instance-to-instance exchange - we learned in the gathering that instances can learn a LOT from each other. and we could use this monthy zoom for this agenda. Or - we could encourage the formation of an instance managers circle where this is shared.
We need all these three things (likely more things), and I think right now we need #2 the most - because we have a new governance process in formation — and we have no where else for that process to be discussed and happen.
just found this post and I am happy to share what I have experienced during the last monthly gathering - the only one I have attended so far. The obvious thing is: it’s all about communication! And this needs to be both: global team to instances and the other way round.
What is working is that everyone has the chance to say a few words about where the instance is, what they have achieved and what challenges they have/where they need help. That’s great!
What could be improved might be the timing of the check-in. If every instance is talking freely in the beginning, the meeting is almost over. My proposal would be to reserve a certain amount of time (maybe 20 minutes max.) and depending on the amount of instances joining the call every instance gets its slot. This might only be 2-3 minutes but we all can expect that people prepare for the meeting and think about what they really want to address. Two minutes is enough for that then. I think it’s okay to be strict on this.
What I wish to hear about in this call is (maybe 30 minutes):
What are the developers working on? What’s finished? What’s next? Show examples?
What is the product curation team working on? What’s finished? What’s next? Show examples?
What is the design team working on? What’s finished? What’s next? Show examples?
What are the priorities and why? What is the next big step that we are working towards?
update on finance, funding
new team members, organizational topics, …
What I wish to address is (30 minutes) - list of topics could be collected during check-in:
Ask questions.
Where we need support from other instances or team global.
Share success stories so other instances can be inspired.
The need for certain software features to be developed. We need to understand that our demands are taken serious and if and when we can expect them to be met.
Challenge the current priorities.
Point out where we see room for improvement so new members find their way around.
I am sorry that I have not visited this thread recently so have only just read the very valuable posts from @Jen and @tschumilas. This meant that I did not take them into account when planning and facilitating the last global meeting. Big apologies
Sorry, I’m noticing that we haven’t posted this here as well but I think we mentioned this during the last hangout: someone from product circle will be there each time to update everyone and especially stress the main conversation that needs community’s feedback. This update will spread from priorities to dev and design. So I think we can merge the two lines @NickWeir
We will take turns: each time someone else from the circle will be in charge of this. We will make sure to update the spreadsheet with the correct name each time
As you already know because you will be contributing @konrad we are currently re-defining our processes on that topic. This being said, I believe that the monthly global meeting is not a place to ask for new features. This should be done asynchronously. Currently this is why there is a wishlist category here on discourse.
The reason why I think it cannot be in a meeting is that I think OFN global is now too big and doing discussion asynchronously on that topic will be the most effective and especially the most inclusive. All 20 instance cannot have equal time on this during the meeting, and we cannot end up with something driven by the loudest instances among us… But happy to chat more on this topic!
Note that any comment on current priorities are already very much welcomed. You can for example add them under our product-curation notes that should give you the current overview of what’s happening software wise: Product curation meeting #27 notes - 30 November 2020
we are currently re-defining our processes on that topic. This being said, I believe that the monthly global meeting is not a place to ask for new features. This should be done asynchronously. Currently this is why there is a wishlist category here on discourse.