also sprach Tiago Bortoletto Vaz <tiago@acaia.ca> [2014-08-19 17:54 +0200]:
> Also, could you (madduck and vorlon) please refer where we can
> find exactly what you want to fix? And how?
First, I don't think it's Steve and I only. We may be most vocal
about it, but many of us think that there's change required.
The question about what needs changing, and how it could be done is
probably one to which you would get a multifarious potporri of
answers, none of which would provide a complete solution, let alone
an optimal one. Heck, such a solution probably doesn't even exist,
but with a little effort, we can surely all work together to do
better than the status quo.
While Steve and I don't agree on everything, we both firmly believe
that a time-critical project such as DebConf needs a decision-making
structure. With this, I mean defining roles and processes such that
those people in charge and responsible for a given aspect of the
conference can make decisions in their realm according to their own
best judgement — let's call this "lean decision making". Or "foster
and support a culture where decisions are best made at the leaves
and only percolate up the tree if there's uncertainty" for all you
graph theorists out there.
Lean decision making requires trust, and trust takes time, which we
will surely need to establish all this. But the general idea is that
everyone on dc-team wants a super conference and will do their best.
If ever there is doubt about a decision, s/he would go out to gather
a broader set of opinions before making a call. Everyone knows that
there are some people with more experience, and others with more
knowledge, and noone /wants/ to make mistakes.
Moreover, we don't blindly appoint people to the aforementioned
"leaves", but we would find a way by which teams are constituted,
such that there's either enough experience, or enough guidance
available at all times.
This is very different from the expectation to always
establish consensus for everything, or to expect the chairs to make
all decisions that are a step beyond trivial. Both of those
decision-making approaches consume endless resources and can take
ages, especially if they accumulate. They break people, and cause us
to be late.
It might sound impossible to achieve the above "lean decision making
tree", given that we are all volunteers. Even the best organised
team will have fluctuations in membership, and we need to find a way
to establish resilience and prevent dependence on individuals. But
once we stop burning so much energy on arguing over roles, figuring
out what others are doing, trying to correct things that have led
astray and reinventing the wheel, we will probably end up with
*less* energy needed for DebConf, or the potential of an even better
conference for which we are motivated to — quote Patty — "work our
ASSES off".
The goal of the two sessions I am proposing might be best put as
trying to formulate an answer to your two questions above. During
the first session, I think we should brainstorm about the things
that are not working like they should. Then we spend the week
pondering and talking, and come together again during the second
session and try to find a way forward ("how") that's agreeable to
everyone. If we don't succeed, we'll have a much stronger basis for
mailing list discussions than if we hadn't tried.
I've done much of this before when researching and formulating my
governance proposal, but as Didier put it earlier, my approach
involved "silo-ing", and so the proposal (even though I still think
it's worthwhile to consider and read) is inferior to anything we can
come up together as a group.
Hope to see you there!
https://dudle.inf.tu-dresden.de/dc14-orga-discussions/
--
.''`. martin f. krafft <madduck@debconf.org> @martinkrafft
: :' : DebConf orga team
`. `'`
`- DebConf14: Portland, OR, USA: http://debconf14.debconf.org
DebConf15: Heidelberg, Germany: http://debconf15.debconf.org
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