[OSGeo Oceania] A discussion on openness

Sun Dec 6 15:17:55 PST 2020

Hi Folks

TLDR:

COVID-19! I am happy. The board are doing their difficult job in these initial stages. Communication in this day and age is bloody hard! Things will settle down. 

My experience

I have been a low key bystander during the formation of OSGEO Oceania. I am retired and have lots of time on my hands to check multiple communication channels. I am an initial member having attended the Melbourne conference and supported the idea of an organisation that supports our region in Open Source software and OpenStreetMap.

The role of the board is set out in a fairly legal and technical way and I commend all those that have stood up to take on the roles, especially in the formation stages of the organisation. 

https://aicd.companydirectors.com.au/resources/director-tools/practical-tools-for-directors/governance-relations/role-of-the-board

It’s not easy, there will be a learning a curve for many and there will be frustrations, arguments and concerns as the organisation develops. The overarching thing for me is that the board does not do anything that would be harmful to the community. To date, I have not seen anything that I believe has harmed the community. In the year of COVID I am just thankful that you have all survived in your work lives (hopefully!) as well as helping set up a vibrant regional organisation. Thank you.

There are likely processes that need to be ironed out, procedures that need formalising and standards set for appropriate timelines for actions but these things will get sorted as the pressure eases from the initial formation stage. Lets be honest, 2020 has been a year like no other and we have managed to survive! Thanks again to you all for your hard work.

Openness and communication

Do I, as a member, need to know every aspect of the board deliberations of all processes? No, I don’t, but I should have a role in helping formulate and at least seeing final drafts before a board sign-off. This has occurred with documents like the terms of reference. Would it be good to have the minutes of meetings in one place, yes absolutely. What’s the best place for those….well, I personally hate wiki’s but they seem to be the norm for open organisations. I can learn to live with that but I wish they had more structure and an easy way to navigate around!

I follow many communication channels for various reasons…Slack, Discord, Mailing lists, Email, Telegram, Zoom, Big Blue Button, Youtube streams….the list is endless these days and adoption varies widely across the Oceania region. This will be a challenge in the short and long term for the organisation. Regions may have their own preferences for local communication so subject to information being available to the wider region it may well be that regions collectively put their thoughts back to the board by one appropriate formal channel. Maybe the mailing list is the ‘formal’ channel?

Conclusion

Don’t be too hard on yourselves – you are all volunteers. Yes, we all need to get some structure back into our lives and OSGEO Oceania is no different. Work on getting timely and regular processes in place and solid regular communication to a formal channel (or two) but personally, I don’t need all the minute details – I trust the board to do no harm!

Cheers – Phil (aka tastrax)

From: Oceania <oceania-bounces at lists.osgeo.org> On Behalf Of Edoardo Neerhut
Sent: Sunday, 6 December 2020 10:32 PM
To: oceania at lists.osgeo.org
Subject: [OSGeo Oceania] A discussion on openness

Hi everyone,

TLDR: 

To the current/former directors: How would you describe the organisation's experience with openness and transparency?

To the whole community: How do you feel? What should the board and the community do more or less of?

The context

There have been a number of comments made recently about transparency and openness and I wanted to tease them out a bit as the end of year approaches. In particular, Adam and John expressed their concerns here <https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania-board/2020-November/000112.html>  and here <https://lists.osgeo.org/pipermail/oceania/2020-November/002439.html>  respectively, with both resigning as directors as a consequence.

This is clearly an issue for further discussion. The OSGeo Oceania director elections end in a few hours and regardless of the results, I am very keen to hear what practical steps we should take to address these concerns. Adam/John: if you have time to elaborate that would be much appreciated as well.

My experience

I think most would agree transparency and openness should be fundamental aspects to our community. What's harder is living up to them. I am guilty of sending a quick Slack message or email to people for the sake of expediency, but failing on transparency as a consequence.

I have worked with many on the current board and feel they are all wonderful, talented people, operating with the best interests of OSGeo Oceania at heart. I'm optimistic about where we're at and we can go and I want to thank all on the board and the wider community for getting us here. Hundreds of people from across the region have been able to learn, share, and connect with geospatial ideas and tools through these efforts. I honestly don't believe there is a people issue here, but a fog over the decision making process which we need to tease out.

My read from where I stand is that there is a constant battle between expediency and openness. I am still trying to understand the relationship between these two things at a practical level.

Practically speaking, what should we do?

I am going to assume we agree that openness is fundamental to the health of the organisation. If I have falsely assumed this, please correct me.

On the areas we are failing, why do we think this is the case? I believe everyone is operating in good faith. 

*	Take the example of meeting minutes. They went up eventually, so do we need to make sure we share responsibility more so that this happens immediately after? Could members of the community join board meetings in this role?
*	On board decisions, why were some decisions timely? Can we minimise that in future? Were some board members slow to make a decision? What is the expectation here from board members?
*	The concept of membership is still vague and I bear more responsibility for this failure than anyone. At the same time, this is something that we as a community should decide collectively. I should have done more to initiatie that conversation openly.

These are just three examples. I'm sure there are many more.

So finally, what are the low hanging fruits? Where should the community focus our efforts going forward? Why are we failing in these areas? How should we address them?

We've come a long way thanks to all of you and I'm very optimistic about the road ahead. How do we traverse it?

Looking forward to hearing everyone's thoughts.

Ed

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