Board/Project Governance

[Máirín Duffy]

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