16/05/2023 Model Proposal - Section 4, Teams and Working Groups

Community Governance
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See parent thread with all sections of the proposed governance model here.

See original text with explanatory comments here.

4 - Teams and working groups

4.1 - Current Teams

The following teams currently exist in the Mautic project as established in the 2019 governance model:

4.2 - Forming and disbanding teams

4.2.1 - Proposal to form a team

  1. Any member or group of members may propose a Team. In order to propose a vote to approve a Team, the member(s) proposing the Team must first draft a proposed Team charter that at least specifies the purpose of the Team and its relationship to the Mautic project’s mission, the work to be undertaken by such Team, how the members of the Team will be selected, the methods by which the Team will achieve its objectives, the methods of communication to be used by the members of the Team, how, what, and when the Team will report to the membership and/or the Community Council, and how the Team will be managed (including how the Leadership Team will be selected).

  2. The Community Council may add new teams to the governance model by a general vote on a ‘whoever turns up’ basis of the whole community <with a majority affirmative vote / with a consensus> from those who vote to create the team and, providing that a clear proposal per section 2.2.1.1 has been created and a proto-team established to demonstrate viability of the team

    Note: bold section to be confirmed/decided

4.2.2 - Proposal to disband a team

  1. The Community Council may disband teams by a general vote on a ‘whoever turns up’ basis of the whole community <with a majority affirmative vote / with a consensus> from those who vote to disband the team, and with affirmative votes from all existing leadership members of that team, confirming that they wish to disband the team.

    Note: bold section to be confirmed/decided

  2. On the disbanding of a team, any associated working groups and projects will be documented and distributed amongst other teams.

4.3 - Working Groups

Team Leads or voting members may establish one or more Working Groups as required to fulfill the tasks of a team or needs of the project. All Working Groups will sit underneath one of the existing Teams, with the Team Lead being responsible for their budget.

4.3.1 - Scope

  1. Each Working Group shall be responsible for the active management of one or more projects identified by their Team Lead or voting members which may include, without limitation, the creation or maintenance of open source software for distribution to the public at no charge, proposing amendments to this governance model, or proposing changes to the operations of the organization. This shall be documented in the Working Group’s charter.

  2. Subject to the direction of the Team Lead and Community Council, the leader of each Working Group shall be primarily responsible for project(s) managed by such a group, and they may establish rules and procedures for the day to day management of project(s) for which the group is responsible.

  3. The Team Lead under which the Working Group sits shall have the sole power relating to the proposal of funds made available to such Working Groups, approved by the Community Council.

  4. The Community Council may set policies or procedures which apply to Working Groups. These policies or procedures may apply to individual Working Groups, multiple Working Groups, or all Working Groups. The leaders of affected Working Groups are responsible for implementing and adhering to the policies or procedures which apply to them.

4.3.2 - Forming and disbanding a Working Group

  1. Any voting member or group of voting members may propose a Working Group.

    In order to propose a vote to approve a Working Group, the member(s) proposing the Working Group must first draft a proposed Working Group charter that at least specifies the purpose of the Working Group and its relationship to the Mautic project’s mission, the expected duration of the Working Group’s existence (which may in some cases be ongoing), the work to be undertaken by such Working Group, how the members of the Working Group will be selected, the methods by which the Working Group will achieve its objectives, the methods of communication to be used by the members of the Working Group, how, what, and when the Working Group will report to the membership and/or their associated Team Lead, and how the Working Group will be managed (including how the leadership will be selected).

  2. The Community Council may, by vote, dissolve a Working Group at any time with agreement of the Team Lead under which the Working Group sits and any existing Working Group leaders.

  3. At disbandment, any existing resources and open projects will transfer to the team under which the Working Group sat.

4.4 - Leadership

4.4.1 - Eligibility

  1. Any member of the community who is eligible to vote and who does not have any outstanding, unresolved code of conduct breaches or investigations may nominate themselves, or be nominated with consent by another, to stand for election to the role of Team Lead or Assistant Team Lead, Working Group Lead or Assistant Working Group Lead.

4.4.2 - Voting

Teams and Working Groups will elect through ranked choice voting on a ‘whoever turns up’ basis, a Lead and Assistant Lead.

4.4.3 - Terms

  1. Leads will have a three year term, and Assistant Leads will have a two year term. Where the expected duration of a Working Group is less than three years (for example with a short-lived Working Group established for a specific purpose), the terms may match the expected duration of the Working Group.

  2. Within six months of the end of a term where a replacement is required for continuity, a call for nominations is made to invite interested parties to submit a proposal for consideration

  3. Within three months of the end of a term, an election is held and a candidate is selected as being the first eligible candidate with the highest number of votes

  4. A three-month handover period will see the incoming leader shadowing the outgoing leader

  5. A three-month outgoing period will see the outgoing leader being available to assist the new leader as required

4.4.4 - Removal or resignation of Team Leadership

  1. A leader may resign at any time upon written request to the Community Council. Furthermore, any leader or the entire Leadership of a Team may be removed, with or without cause, by a vote of the majority of the members entitled to vote.

  2. A leader will be automatically removed from their leadership role in the event that such leader ceases to be a member of the community for any reason. A representative may also be removed from their leadership role as a result of an investigation finding that there has been a breach of the Code of Conduct for which action is required in the form of removing their leadership roles.

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Hello @rcheesley,

Is there an archive somewhere of the history of what has been achieved team by team?
Is it possible for future discussions to take place on the forum, so as to have a centralized location, with archived discussions publicly accessible from Google?

What is the difference between Team and Working Group?
What does “being responsible for their budget” mean? What budget are we talking about? To do what? Who decides on budgets?

Isn’t this a bit long for volunteers? I’d suggest a maximum Lead term of 12-18 months and an Assistant term of the same length.
Why a different duration for Lead and Assistant?

Pierre

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That’s a good question - in past Mautic Updates I’ve explained these so you can catch them on the YouTube Channel.

In the past we did post in the forums our team meeting notes (see the Community category) but we got out of the habit because the Chrome extension that we used became really buggy. I think we should definitely get back into the habit of sharing more widely.

A Team covers a wide area of the project - we defined the five teams at the Community Summit in Nov 2019. See the governance model: https://contribute.mautic.org/community-structure/governance

A working group is usually something that is focused on one specific task, project, or area.

Often they only exist for a short period of time - once that task or project is completed. Sometimes they do exist for longer - for example the newsletter working group - and sometimes they spin up and spin down with similar team members, for example the MautiCon working group.

They are smaller, and they roll up into one of the main teams, generally speaking.

Once a year we (the Community Council, currently) determine the available budget for the year, and team leads propose what they need to run their teams. This is then allocated into projects on Open Collective.

Experience has shown us otherwise. In the role of a team lead, it’s important to have the longevity and continuity. It generally takes about a year, at least, to make a substantial impact. It’s also quite turbulent for the team to go through a leadership change. So we went for three years when we started the teams and so far it’s worked pretty well.

This was originally because we wanted to ensure that we staggered the team lead and assistant team lead’s renewal dates. We wanted to make sure that we didn’t lose the Assistant Team Lead and the Lead at the same time. There might be better ways to do it now though!

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I think a working group should automatically be disbanded when the exit criteria have been met. They should also be set clearly in advance as otherwise it’s a regular community group.

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I suggest to make it so that the assistent-lead becomes the lead and is assisted by the former lead for a year until a new assistent-lead steps in. This way you allow others opportunity to learn and as few as possible disruption due to people suddenly dissapearing So:

Y1

  • Nick (Lead)
  • Ruth( Old Lead acting as assistant lead)

Y2

  • Nick (Lead)
  • Mattias (New Assitant lead)

Y3

  • Mattias (Lead)
  • Nick (old lead acting as assistant lead)

…

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A post was merged into an existing topic: 16/05/2023 Model Proposal - Section 5, Council

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Notes from Gabor on Slack:

  • re team creation its not clear to me: whoever turns up can create a team and vote to disband a team? was that intended?
  • how team goals, leadership, etc. can be changed is not defined(?) eg. who needs to sign off on leadership changes, etc.
  • any member can propose a team but only voting members can propose a working group, is that intentional? (in general do you want to restrict creation of new structures to paying and/or already contributing members?)
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That’s a good point - not all working groups will have exit criteria so I think we need both what we have currently and something like this maybe:

4.3.2.4. If a working group is created for a specific time-limited purpose it should have clear exit criteria, which will result in the Working Group being automatically disbanded when they are met.

Yeah - good idea, I like that! Then it also encourages the ‘up and out’ mentality of always having someone training to take on the role.

It may be a concern for me only having two full years as a team lead. In some cases it might light a fire for a leader to get stuff done in their team lead, but also it could be frustrating as it takes time to get traction.

I wonder what existing leads/assistant leads have to say? cc/ @ekke @grienauer @npracht @mollux @joeyk @favour @tobsowo @deborahsalves

I think this would be in the Council section so I will move the comment there.

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