A case for the organizational chart

Special thanks to @brichis , @Pumbi and the @govNERDs for the feedback and information support. And to the people at the Developer Advisory Board meeting for motivating to continue.

Dear fellow members of the collective,

As someone curious about organizational structures, I am surprised not to find any organizational chart that shows how the different operational roles are, both in the OP foundation and with the most active contributors of the collective.

For me, having an organizational chart will work like a ‘you are here’ on those park maps. Knowing who is where and who the people are connected to can be very useful; especially in a 100% virtual organization where you can’t get lost in the hallways. :blush:

I admit that I am a ‘visual’ person and perhaps my opinion is biased… :see_no_evil:
but in order to ‘share’ my vision I decided to create a prototype that exemplifies what I imagine. :sparkler:

https://app.mural.co/t/alexsoto6941/m/alexsoto6941/1723490012295/dd52b073d03daf635e611f21d8f3f2f4fe1d0a70?sender=ud6461ce37fd968e224f71144

Internal Communication Structure (Draft)

This figure is inspired by sociocratic/holacratic structures where each ‘circle’ represents a team of some kind. The idea of ​​creating ‘interconnections’ between circles promotes the idea that more information flow between teams has advantages when it comes to adapting to the changing environment. Which are increasingly recurrent.


How to read this map *(and some suggestions)*:

  • Each circle belongs to a ‘team’ of some kind (which requires having ‘meetings’ or status reports every so often). Whether sharing a telegram group or a private discord channel, the suggestion is to create a ‘flow of information’ where at least two people from each circle participate.
  • People who are at the intersection of two circles belong to both teams as full members (and sociocracy encourages decisions to be made by consent).
  • The most central circles should avoid making operational decisions to be executed by other circles (but allow them to define how to operate from their autonomy), and rather focus on sharing reports and generating alignment between all parties.
  • Just because two people are not interconnected by circles doesn’t mean they can’t have direct communication. In fact, it’s amazing that we have the ability to send DMs at the speed of light. The more information flow, the more agility.

mini-disclosure

  • In some cases I have put people at random as ‘examples’ of ‘lead’ and ‘representative’ for lack of more information on the matter. I am aware that there are errors and omissions in these lists.
    Anyone who has information to add can contact me as @alexsotodigital

Some considerations of this approach.

Double Link:

At each ‘intersection’ there are at least two people, which usually means

  • a ‘lead’ person (often established by the mother circle)
  • a ‘representative’ chosen by the rest of the circle.

Double link is one of the main principles of sociocracy, as it makes sure there is no power-over and ensures flow of information and transparency in all directions. If there was only one person, the group could be in danger of:

  • the person missing an important meeting (preventing a decision from being made or creating a communication gap between both circles).
  • the intermediary person being able to traffic or omit information to avoid some issue.
  • the lead person not having the well-being of the team in their interests and making commitments without it being the opinion of the group.

Roles, not people:

Although in this first prototype I write the names of the person (as they have chosen their user within the community) and not the role (such as ‘Code of Conduct Council Member 1/5’), I think it is important to highlight that this organizational chart is mapping ‘roles’ and not ‘people’. That’s because:

  • In an organizational chart with people, it is often perceived that the person is immovable and has greater resistance to change; especially in hierarchical organizations where there is ‘a boss’.
  • With roles, a person can be represented in several places in the organizational chart simultaneously (as happens here) which promotes greater mobility and accountability.

In a structure by roles, a person can have several roles and a role can be inhabited by multiple people simultaneously. :sparkles:


The Ask.

I would like to point out that I created this on a Mural canvas in the absence of better technical skills. However, I think this could serve as a blueprint for some team that knows how to bring this to a 2.0 version. If you can think of any team that might be interested in collaborating with me to do this, please tag them in the comments.

Some features I imagine:

  • Being able to select the name of the role and when clicking on it, go to see the person or people who occupy it. There could be a link to the forum, as well as other contact information.
  • Having some way of ‘updating’ automatically (at a graphical level) once it is written in an internal database. This way, several people could have editing permissions and it would save time.
  • Set the ‘time period’ for which the participation agreement will be maintained and trigger a notification alarm to let us know it’s time to update or make a change.
  • Being supported on a website that is own by the collective.

Commitment :pray:

Until we find a more automatic solution, I am committed to keeping this version as up to date as possible.
If there are any changes you would like to request, you can find me as @alexsotodigital or write to me at alex.soto.digital@gmail.com

What do you think?
Do you think this would be useful?

Is it worth building?

  • Yeees!
  • Maybe
  • Nah
0 voters
8 Likes

This is great @alexsotodigital - @brichis was recently filling me in on this idea, so it is excellent to see this underway. It would be great to see OP Labs here as well and potentially another Transition Circle there like you have for the Foundation. It would also be great to have contact information for each currently filled role and maybe a description of particular focus for that person within the DAO.

As far as working with another party to build this out more fully, feel free to shoot me a message on Telegram @ OxBroze. Have a few ideas there.

-Charlie, Anthias Labs

2 Likes

Hi Charlie! @AnthiasLabs
@brichis had also told me about you and how cool your work is. :sweat_smile:

As a wannabe-govNERD I’m already in contact with @op_julian who is following up on more information about who occupies which role. :crossed_fingers:

By the way, I love the idea of ​​having a description of the focus of each role, and it resonates with what I’ve worked on with Holocracy; where we seek to define:

  • (i) the purpose (a.k.a. the reason for being)
  • (ii) the accountabilities (carried out with the greatest possible autonomy)
  • (iii) the skills necessary to inhabit it (a.k.a. a course or diploma to obtain)
  • (iv) any domain it may have (a.k.a. things you need to ask permission for before using)

But I guess that will have to be in version 2.0, since Mural doesn’t allow it as such, or does it? Anyway, I’m happy to find a way to upgrade this and keep iterating until we get to something that’s valuable to the OP collective. :sparkles:

I’ll find you on telegram, and I’m happy to hear your and everyone’s ideas on the matter. I really appreciate it. :v:

Cheers.

1 Like

Thanks for bringing this top up @alexsotodigital There is already a tool which allows this https://sobol.io/ and I have used it for over 2 years. I can link the team that’s working on this with the founder if you all are interested.

2 Likes

Hi @jengajojo!

I’m aware of some of the tools in this style (like Glassfrog, Holaspirit, and Nestr) but in general they’ve seemed somewhat limited/rigid and somewhat expensive in the early stages.

I didn’t know about Sobol and I see some very attractive features (especially the integration with Discord, which the OP collective already uses to assign roles).
Definitely interested in you linking to the team that’s developing it. :blush: :pray:

Although I suppose we’d need to launch a grant request or something if we wanted buy-in from the entire collective; I think it might be interesting to explore the options and make a more robust prototype before proposing it.

Hey @alexsotodigital I’d like to refloat this post because I feel that for many members of the community it was a very useful idea to have this grand organizational scheme.

In fact, the @superchaineco team presented a similar work today. Maybe join forces with them?

2 Likes

Sure! Thanks @Pumbi, for keeping me up to date and connected with the progress of this topic. :slight_smile:

I’d love to talk and collaborate @SuperchainEco. :sparkles:
How do you imagine maintaining your map? Or is the idea to make one per season?

1 Like