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