On 09/12/2013 10:54 AM, Robyn Bergeron wrote: > So - let me throw this out there. > > Why not? > > There are two distinct things going on here: > > 1) I think there is some agreement about the usefulness of having a > cross-functional team to deal with some of the process-related things. > (Though... logistics list? Does this group need to meet every week?) I don't think the point of a group can be to coordinate between groups, can it? I think the point needs to be the cross-functional project. Otherwise how would this work - a group would meet every week to discuss various cross-functional projects across Fedora? How would a cross-functional project 'register' with this group? What good would this group do that the project team couldn't do on their own? > 2) I think there is probably more question about "what is the > problem > we're trying to solve here" - we clearly have people who are okay with > the "governs the least" model, and others who think that the board > should be highly active in some areas. To qualify my earlier post, I don't think the board should be micromanaging or getting deep into the projects that are happening across the project. Rather, I think the board should have solid projects of its own that it does to amplify the great work that's already being done out there. Does that make sense? I am against bureaucracy and am not advocating for it; rather, if the board doesn't actually work on anything I question what good does it do and why does it exist? The board could work on things that could be very positively impactful on the project as a whole. Here are some example projects I think the board could actively work on: - There was talk about this but I think it stalled: having a dashboard of sorts to collect information about the community's health and identify issues that need to be addressed, and addressing them. (E.g., team X is really struggling and not making deadlines because they don't have enough folks helping out. The board could consult with this team and help get the word out and try to drum up more recruits for them since they are so overwhelmed they don't have time to do it themselves.) - Administering an outreach program like GNOME's Outreach Program for Women to increase our contributor diversity. - Approaching individual teams, learning about how they work and documenting it, querying them as to whether or not they need any assistance / asking them what could make the project a better place for them to function it and taking action on those suggestions. So there's two functions here - assessing the state of the community, and deploying programs to help solve those problems where there isn't any already-existing group to own the issue. The healers you go to when you're low on mana and have no phoenix down... > So with that in mind - might it be useful to consider the question of, "Are there other alternative structures?" Including: None at all; smaller/more agile; etc. > > The board was set up a long time ago, for specific purposes. Have we outlived those? Would anyone like to take us in the wayback machine to Ye Olden Fedora Days? > One idea would be to look through the backlogs of board election survey question answers about what people intended to get done on the board to see the kinds of things board members have actually wanted to do and see if there's any useful vision there that was unable to come to fruition because of the current board structure. ~m _______________________________________________ advisory-board mailing list advisory-board@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx https://admin.fedoraproject.org/mailman/listinfo/advisory-board
