Circles and roles update

[benhylau]

I am working on improving the role definition and assignments now, so they better reflect how people are working in each circle and who is doing what.

My ask here from each circle is:

1. Designate a “lead”, this is the PM and point person to contact when someone outside the circle needs information, and makes sure the circle gets necessary external resources to be successful.

   @dvdjaco is now in this role for Tech Circle but we want to formalize this and extend the structure to other circles. Prod Circle, for example, could benefit by having a person drive the branded Wordpress website task, communicate progress externally, and raise need for web dev capacity.

2. Write new role descriptions and people assignments for your circle. I expect this to look largely like what we currently have, but have separation that better reflect what people are doing.

   Right now, Org Circle especially is having everyone doing the tasks of everyone else, and front-office roles aren’t adequately captured. The recent switch in contact@ and user member onboard responsibilities aren’t captured here at all. We want to fix that.

Please submit a draft for your circle in this thread to present at our next All Hands.

[osb]

I second the need for an update on the Roles - as per the roadmap.
And the need for a Lead for each Circle.
I also think we need to clarify which task fall into which circles, as per the previous discussions about Sales and the “front office” Role (managing contact@ etc) which doesn’t fit perfectly within any of the existing Circles.

I would be happy to take the lead on Marketing - but I’m not sure if I’m best suited to lead on the entire work of the Product Circle… I guess that depends how / if we redefine the tasks of each Circle.

Maybe this deserves a dedicated All Hands, with all Ops Members, in which we can do the work to redefine the Circles and appoint Circle Leads?

[osb]

In our All Hands (today - just now) we agreed to spend half of next weeks All Hands (28 Jan) to working on the above (and the other half on Compensation allocation) - hope to see all Ops Members there (altho Simply Secure are on retreat, so we will miss them )

[benhylau]

We agreed to dedicate half of the next meeting to this. In the meantime pls add any relevant info in here.

We have at least 3 rotating roles:

• contact@
• account creation
• twitter

[osb]

In our Product meeting (22.01.2021) Wouter and I discussed
Roles & responsibilities in the Product & Services Circle

missing:

product management: receiving, analysing, valueing of user feedback and prioritising of development of the user experience and actual product and services - Maybe Simply Secure can take on this role?

Currently Product includes

Sales is responsible for generating sales leads and growing membership contributions to our organisation. This role is currently filled by Oliver at The Open Co-op and Wouter at femProcomuns & Free Knowledge Institute.

We need a way to encourage more sales

• Referrals = best way to get User members to help… maybe onlyn makes sense once we have a CRM / or when we start signing users up via WP

• at this moment however it’s probably not worth the admin, but can become attractive later?

• “Meet.coop champions” - idea for the community… Badges ? for bringing on X new members…

• Ideas for Encouraging Ops Members to share more / invite new Members to join:

• email templates

• blog posts templates

• Redesign Default slide - to mention our values and to encourage Members to grow the Commons - by onboarding members to Meet.coop, i.e. go to meet.coop - The Online Meeting Cooperative for templates to help you bring on new members

[benhylau]

Relevant notes from Roles at the Org Circle meeting of 2021-01-22

Legal and Organisational Governance

is responsible for legal aspects and the governance of our organisation, from our legal status as a multistakeholder co-operative to our data policies. This role is currently filled by Graham at [Platform 6].

• But this is not filled by Graham or anyone atm

• David raised GDPR is important and we need to look into it

• could be split out into 2 roles: Legal and Data policies etc

• can we really establish meetcoop?

• think legal form is too early, need critical mass first, don’t drain our limited capacity into legal org building

• need someone to consider the legal governance bit, small role right now, to formalize document between us: right now meet.coop intents to be an informal/unincorporated association (Legal structures for community groups and not-for-profit organisations | Resource Centre), and at the same time a cooperative. It lacks some work though: we’ll need to draft the Constitution see >> https://www.resourcecentre.org.uk/information/constitutions/

• So the Unincorporated Association acts as data contoller for GDPR (e.g. or one of the orgs become data controller), or the ORG.circle takes the role a data controller

• we should have a proper process for it, to make sure any issues our users may have is taken care of

• we don’t need a role for this it’s hard for a single org to be in charge of this, it’s the job of the Org Circle

TASKS:

• draft a data document (where things are stored, etc.) basically improve our current privacy policy

• • make sure new legal@ email goes to org circle and is taken care of by circle

Membership and Reseller

Management* is responsible for the relationship between our organisation and its members, including managing membership statuses, processing new operational member applications, user member accounts, and our reseller relationships. This role is currently filled by Wouter at [femProcomuns][femProcomuns] & [Free Knowledge Institute][Free Knowledge Institute].*

• Reseller is in its infancy (pilot)

• Membership is being managed by Wouter

Organisational Operations

is responsible for maintaining the operational aspects of our virtual office, including access management, process documents, and internal training, so we can collaborate effectively as a remote organisation. This role is currently filled by Benedict at [Hypha][Hypha] and Calix at [Autonomic][Autonomic].

• Keep as is

Membership Care (NEW)

• care work within the org: focused on the ops members. This role update is also part of it.

Bridge with Community Care manager (within Community Circle). Right now it’s Wouter doing this work, but Mike wants to do this too.

• Reach out to Zinc if they are still interested

• There should be a parallel in the Community Circle, for User Members

• Right now, work that Wouter, Gary, Mike are leading is not captured anywhere, it is in the Community Circle to be formed.

Finance

is responsible for financial planning, facilitating payments, bookkeeping, and accounting. This role is currently filled by Benedict at [Hypha][Hypha] and Wouter at [femProcomuns] & [Free Knowledge Institute]

• Needs attention

• We need a CFO role - to manage forward look and checking our fiances are in order

• Ben is doing Bookkeeper

Business Planning

is responsible for our business strategy, including market intelligence, product-market fit research, and developing our product roadmap. This role is currently filled by Graham at [Platform 6]

Currently being covered a little bit by: Wouter, Oli, Ben and Georgia.

• Needs attention

Strategic: how does the Org survive (financially) and position Org in the best way for positive cash flow

• includes the development of grants, which requires leadership

• underdeveloped investment case

• seek lead for this

[benhylau]

Notes from All Hands:

• Product In meeting, @osb pointed out need for a Product-Tech person, perhaps Simply Secure can fill?
• Community Mike: Community ‘circle’ can communicate status and process thro the forum - commencing this week. It will be a while b4 it needs to be a proper circle, with functions/roles. Currently, it rests in the voluntary sphere - it has a programme ‘team’ of volunteers.
• Tech Discuss at Tech meeting next week
• TODO: Ben update Circles sheet and update here for Org and Prod

[benhylau]

I have updated this sheet with Prod and Org updates. I also added two Rotating Roles can anyone sign up for Feb and Mar?