[AUUG-Talk]: paper ballot?

[steve jenkin]

Dave Horsfall wrote on 26/1/08 11:15 AM:
> Answers, anyone?
>
> I'm also told that the Annual Returns have not been filed for, umm, quite 
> a while...
>
> I will be more than happy to be proven wrong on both of these points.
>
> -- Dave, stirrer of possums
> _______________________________________________
> Talk - The AUUG discussion list.
> Talk at auug.org.au
> http://www.auug.org.au/mailman/listinfo/talk
>
>
>   

Not to badger the Board, but there seem to be a number of quite
important work items outstanding - with no obvious schedule or unified
task list.

For the Board and Members, I think it would be helpful to everyone to
enumerate *all* outstanding tasks, to know who has volunteered to do
them and by when. Plus we need to know whether deadlines are hard or
soft, so external deadlines/compliances will be reliably met.

It also allows the Board to delegate tasks to any 'noisy mynors' who
feel they can step-up and contribute to individual tasks. Avoiding
overloading the Board at this time seems to me to be the most important
thing if we are to be successful completing tasks in the immediate future.

This is lower-case transparency and accountability, not draconian
Governance...  Not to fuel a blamefest, but to allow the group to
reliably move forward in the face of the usual & expected plight of
volunteers - getting swamped.

I'm looking for a lightweight, effective approach so we can reliably get
things done.
[This forum has a tendency to substitute 'endian' arguments for action
and accept criticism without contribution.]
[Please don't let this thread degenerate into one of these blind alleys.]


As others have said, we are all in this together and AUUG has quite an
accumulation of goodwill and support - if only it can be mustered and
applied. A lot of people have indicated an interest in AUUG continuing -
now would be a good time to test what that expressed interest amounts
to.  As a collective, if we cannot self-organise and complete a small,
well-defined task, then there is no way larger, longer-term goals can be
set and met.


Can anyone can up with a good plan that we as a group can be guaranteed
to execute reliably?


The on-line wiki/forum may have been a platform for this, but the need
for usernames/passwords creates a serious impediment in my eyes. [I was
one of the few contributors to the 'new auug' wiki a while back]
If someone has a great way to overcome this perceived impediment, please
step forward :-)

For adequate tracking, all that's needed is a publicly visible file with
4 columns:
    'Task', 'person(s)', due-date and 'link'

The person responsible for a task would be responsible for providing the
link and maintaining its contents.
At a pinch, an optional 'dependency' field in the tracking file would be
useful...
[The ballot depends on the mail-out. Winding-up depends on the ballot.
Distributing assets depends on the decision to wind-up, ...]

The task file needs to have a single owner responsible for timely
updates and be able to hand-on the baton if they become swamped/unavailable.

For any scheme to work, sufficient warning of problems is needed,
especially for hard (external) deadlines.
Having a taskee say "whoops" on or after a deadline collectively drops
us in it, especially when it was predictable and avoidable.
Frequent-enough status updates are needed, with an obvious catch-all
(monitor) for the usual indicator of volunteer overload - silence.
Suggestions for this side of things would be most helpful.

Looking forward to your helpful posts :-)
[BTW: My preference is that you reply to the list only, not include me
and others as a 'CC']

-- 
Steve Jenkin, Info Tech, Systems and Design Specialist.
0412 786 915 (+61 412 786 915)
PO Box 48, Kippax ACT 2615, AUSTRALIA

sjenkin at canb.auug.org.au http://members.tip.net.au/~sjenkin