Governance Model

Organization circle
74

thanks Ben, I think this is a good basis. Tomorrow we’ll go through further details on the decision making.

75

Hi folks,
Is there a governance call tomorrow? I believe I have been invited to give a brief overview of sociocracy as part of the process of establishing a 1.0 governance. I have a simple presentation I can give if that would be useful…
I have meetings pretty much throughout the morning but free after 2.30pm BST.
Cheers,
Aaron

1 Like
76

Based on meeting notes, it looks like 2 pm CEST is the gov meeting, followed by a 3 pm CEST service levels meeting. I missed the last part of the meeting last week, so not sure if this was final.

Since @aaronhirtenstein is only free after 3:30 pm CEST, I propose we keep the service levels meeting time, but move the governance one to after that, starting at 4 pm CEST. Like this:

Service Levels: 3 pm CEST
Governance: 4 pm CEST

What do @wouter @mikemh @chris @osb think?

@aaronhirtenstein yes I’d appreciate a short presentation on sociocracy.

1 Like
77

Those are good for me thanks @benhylau. Yes @aaronhirtenstein something on sociocracy would be good to have.

1 Like
78

Ok thanks both, that works for me. I appreciate the flexibility.

1 Like
79

For discussion, I’ve put a draft on governance practice into the wiki. It refers to the circles (as ‘workers’ coop’ hands-on governance), a general assembly (which embraces ‘consumer coop’ governance), and the ‘permanent assembly’ of the forum.

It includes some notions of voting in a general assembly, but these are extremely tentative. They are based on contributions, rather than on shareholdings, as in a conventional coop.

[Edit] Also, includes a reference to sociocracy - as a placeholder. Makes references to the DisCO governance model, with a link.

2 Likes
80

hi there. I can make it to the new times for Service Levels, but to governance only to the first part. At 16:30 I’ll need to leave. That’s the best we can get for today I guess, so see you then, in the Main Meetcoop room, right?

81

Okay see you all here in the main room https://ca.meet.coop/b/wou-cyy-wpt

82

Just read this. I wonder if there is a minimum number of participants to have this many circles. If active contributors are 10 people, how does this work? Wouldn’t everyone need to be in like 4 circles?

Basically, how do we go from what we have today, into a structure like this? Esp since no one is full time on Meet.coop. I do like many of the ideas in there, but concerned about implementation due to capacity.

Hopefully @aaronhirtenstein can have a chance to read this as well and draw parallels from his org.

1 Like
83

I had the same feeling that 8 circles maybe too much at this point. I think these are all good and sound ideas but maybe a more lean structure can be found for the beginning? I probably won’t have the time to join more than one call every other week.

I think the focus should be on starting to “produce” and get money, while building and evaluating a well-defined and working structure that scales for the future.

2 Likes
84

Our meeting notes from today’s meeting is here. I believe @aaronhirtenstein and I both believe that ~3 Circles would be the right number for us at this stage, and they should map to critical functions of Meet.coop.

My rough proposal:

  • Organizational Operations
  • Product Strategy and Services
    • @osb @melissamcnab @wouter @hng …
    • Determine service levels, reseller program, roadmap, branding, external communications, events liaising
  • Technology Operations
    • @chris @decentral1se @Yurko @hng …
    • Manage the infrastructure and GitLab spaces, development of new features, answer technical questions on forum, etc.

Then there is the “everyone” circle that is our general assembly aka. All Hands style meeting. Each other these groups have authority to make decisions within their clearly designate domain of responsibility and decide things based on consent (consent is the absence of disagreement rather than consensus of agreement).

Each circle also needs a leader, who is committing the most attention to ensure things move forward. In my opinion it is most important that this role within a Circle is the first waged position. @aaronhirtenstein also mentioned facilitator, secretary, and delegate positions in Circles, which we can add later.

4 Likes
85

Yeah LGTM!

1 Like
86

Yeah looks good, thank you for your work! :slight_smile:

1 Like
87

I have just posted this and felt it was so relevant to governance - let me post the link here.

https://forum.meet.coop/t/weekly-progress-meeting-thursday-9-july/183/2?u=yasuaki

1 Like
88

Now that we almost :smile: have a system of three circles in operation, the nature of the ‘everyone circle’ necessarily shifts? Executive action occurs in circles. So maybe, the all-hands meeting now becomes the Stewards circle?

‘Steward’ is the word I’m suggesting for the leader of a circle - a rotating responsibility, referred to by @benhylau above, based on @aaronhirtenstein 's framing of how circles work. ‘Steward’ follows the idea that each circle is cultivating a kind of commons, which is the basic purpose of the circle; and ‘stewarding’ is a good commons-oriented piece of language.

In the first instance, the Stewards circle would have three members (from three operational circles). But maybe there’s no reason why this meeting of circle stewards shouldn’t be held ‘in public’ with all hands present and contributing? However, the executive authority, that the all-hands meeting might have informally held until now, passes to the circles, in their respective areas?

The work of the Stewards circle is to mop up whatever might not be operationally covered in the other three. So, it takes the view of the overall venture, and the overall evolving community of coop membership and usage. Specifically this includes engaging in appropriate ways with 'passive’ User members who are relating to meet.coop like a normal consumer coop, and are not participating in the operational ‘insider’ worker-circles. Eventually, maybe some kind of Assembly will be needed - like the annual general meeting of a consumer coop?

1 Like
89

hi @benhylau great work on this!

I think the 3 circles you’ve outlined make sense to me. A few things spring to mind:

  1. Frequency of meetings - we should agree something rational and avoid too many meetings in a single week. Perhaps the all hands meeting could be less frequent?
  2. Balance of meetings and work - meetings should be about planning / reviewing work and getting input and avoid circular discussions that don’t lead to action. We need to be really mindful of this and be prepared to raise this (and other issues that hinder getting stuff done)
  3. Meeting facilitator is a really important role and will help with getting the most out of talking time. It will help with the point 2.
  4. Purpose and value of All Hands Meeting - as @mikemh says this can focus on information sharing and gathering input rather than on making lots of decisions or planning work.
  5. Leader role - I don’t think this is such a crucial role, I would prioritise importance of the work in terms of waged positions e.g. sysadmin. I’m not even sure at this stage we need a leader role, having just been in a presentation from Outlandish about their circle structures. They don’t have a leader role, they have a “climate” role, someone responsible for the emotional climate of communications / organising. It is a similar but emphasis is slightly different.

Looking forward to catching up later

3 Likes
90

9 members voted Agree to adopted this on July 9, 2020 All Hands.

*Probably we should move all these proposals to a single tag

1 Like
91

I agree with all you said. Also regular recurring meetings are important so we don’t have to keep sorting times.

The meeting chair is also the first role that emerged at Hypha, and second is Notetaker.

Something we are also learning at Hypha All Hands!

I feel having someone make a commitment to make sure things move forward is really important especially bc Meet.coop is completely part-time members. This can be achievable without a specific leader role, or a rotating Chair dual as “Leader” durationally?

1 Like
92

Last week we worked on a “one-pager” to describe the most relevant aspects of Meet.coop in terms of its sustainability model. This morning I have updated that pad that we worked on and copied it to the wiki, to this page:
https://wiki.meet.coop/wiki/Online_Meeting_Coop_Wiki:About

Even though not all aspects are 100% agreed and will need to be amended still, I hope this gives a more accurate overview than we had until now. My hope is that we can have a working model without seriously conflicting positions and get started ASAP.

You’ll see that it incorporates the Membership definition with suggested amendments + the Circles proposal we voted for yesterday.

Doubts, things that need to be improved until we have rough consensus, or consent:

  • Voting strength: I have put a draft in there, but I also saw another proposal by Mike to link voting strength not only to membership class but also to circle participation. My gutfeeling here is that we need a simple model that can evolve and get more complex over time, but please disagree.
  • Spaces for decisionmaking; is it worded correctly or do we need major changes for now?
  • we’ll need to work out some basic “Compensation framework” that allows us to pay people for work. This is not trivial, but a draft version is rather urgent so key workers know more or less how compensations can be expected to work.
  • Collective Fund: all revenues that Meet.coop can dispose of: how will we manage that?
  • Service Levels: the summary is in here, but details are referred to in the wiki:service_level page

Maybe not all details need to be in this same wiki page About Meet.coop and can be linked to detailed pages elsewhere in the wiki.

Then we should make sure the rest of the wiki is made consistent with the ongoing consent on terminology etc. And next we should add some parts to the front website org.meet.coop

I hope is a step forward.
Cheers, Wouter

1 Like
93

I just want to +1 this and acknowledge that it’s a really key insight. If what you’re doing so far seems to be working, documenting and clarifying it is the logical first step in formalizing governance.

2 Likes