Proposal to elect a new board for Agile Alliance Australia

[Andrew Walker]

Folks,

We have been working hard to gain momentum in the Sydney chapter of
this (currently) loosely managed group.

I don't feel that the goals of the parent or city groups are being met
by the current level of inactivity here, especially given the recent
flurry of activity in the city chapters. It doesn't make a huge
amount of sense for each city to form its own legal entity, bank
accounts, goals etc. At least not to my simple mind :)

We need to get to a point quickly where the parent organisation is
formally created and is controlling the brand nationallly, along with
the international relationship with Agile Alliance. Also the
relationship with the annual conference needs to be formalised if
we're going to make a dent on national awareness of Agile and its
benefits to companies Australia-wide.

I am passionate about being part of this movement and very aware of
the contribution made by the founding members, keen to move it on to
the next level.

To this end, I would like to propose the election of a new board for
the national group - how would this be achieved?

Warm regards to my fellow agilists,
Andrew Walker

[Mike Allen]

Hi Andrew,

I support your proposal for the election of a new board for the Agile
Alliance Australia. I would be keen to maintain the original intent
that each state would have a representative on that board. So perhaps
the form would be for each of the city based groups to nominate and
elect candidates, who would then go forward to represent that state
within the Agile Alliance Australia. I imagine then that the specific
positions on the board (Chairman, Secretary, Treasurer) could be
elected from within the board itself.

I guess the alternative would be for the board to be set at five
members and for nominations to be received without any reference to
their home state. The five would then be elected by majority vote
nationally. The problem I see with this is that the board membership
would then be skewed to the larger states (Vic and NSW).... a bad
thing in my mind, but then I am from WA....

Am happy to listen to alternative suggestions.

Cheers
Mike

On Mar 23, 8:37 pm, Andrew Walker <andrew.mason.wal...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Steve Hayes]

The current board has already agreed to step down as soon as convenient - we agree that we haven't been effective, probably for different reasons for each person (so I don't think there's a systemic problem). Mark Mansour was carrying the ball on that, but I think that his time has been taken by other things lately.

The decisions that need to be made before any election (from my individual perspective) are:

1) What's the structure of the board? (Simple answer is to default to the current arrangement of one person per state, with a chairperson)
2) What's the term of the board?
3) Who gets to vote?
4) How do people nominate?
5) What's the timetable for the election?
6) How will the votes be counted?

I think that can be resolved by someone who cares putting out a proposal via this group. I don't think it would be a challenge to have the result endorsed by the current board.

I think that nominations should include statements from nominees on how they believe A3 should be run - what are the (concrete) goals, what's the funding model, what do they believe they can contribute, and a statement on how much time they can devote. I think that would help people vote on the basis of direction rather than individuals, and would help focus people on time commitments before they nominate. If I had done this myself I wouldn't be on the board.

People who nominate should be at least willing to spend the time required to set up a legal entity, bank accounts etc.

Steve

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[Mark Mansour]

Hi All,

> The current board has already agreed to step down as soon as convenient - we
> agree that we haven't been effective, probably for different reasons for
> each person (so I don't think there's a systemic problem). Mark Mansour was
> carrying the ball on that, but I think that his time has been taken by other
> things lately.

Steve, that is a correct summation of the current situation (including
the one about my time :)

> The decisions that need to be made before any election (from my individual
> perspective) are:
>
> 1) What's the structure of the board? (Simple answer is to default to the
> current arrangement of one person per state, with a chairperson)
> 2) What's the term of the board?
> 3) Who gets to vote?
> 4) How do people nominate?
> 5) What's the timetable for the election?
> 6) How will the votes be counted?
>
> I think that can be resolved by someone who cares putting out a proposal via
> this group. I don't think it would be a challenge to have the result
> endorsed by the current board.

This is a great idea and move the A3 forward.

> I think that nominations should include statements from nominees on how they
> believe A3 should be run - what are the (concrete) goals, what's the funding
> model, what do they believe they can contribute, and a statement on how much
> time they can devote. I think that would help people vote on the basis of
> direction rather than individuals, and would help focus people on time
> commitments before they nominate.

Again, this is great and adds focus.

> People who nominate should be at least willing to spend the time required to
> set up a legal entity, bank accounts etc.

Agreed. Although my intentions were in the right place when elected I
do not adequate time to give the Agile Alliance Australia at this
time.

So, let the nominations begin.

Mark

[Andrew Walker]

Building on that...

If a quorum (3 including the chairman) of the current board is
prepared to, then I would suggest keeping it simple:

1. state based structure
2. term: 1 year unless the new board agrees to change
3. existing board members decide
4. people nominate themselves via email to a central email address
using steve's suggestion above
5. 4 weeks should be plenty of time
6. existing board members assess candidates on merit, select the
board and hand over
7. first meeting of the new team to agree on which suggestions from
submissions will form part of the goals etc

This keeps it simple, I'm sure people trust the founders to do a good
job of this.

How's that sound?

Andrew.

[Keith Dodds]

Agree with the idea of electing a new board. However, I think it
doesn't sound very good for "6. existing board members assess
candidates on merit, select the board and hand over." This just
doesn't sound very democratic to me. About 90 people have signed up on
this list. Another couple of hundred for the Sydney and Melbourne
Agile Alliance Meet-Up groups. I think this is a natural "voting base"
for electing the new board. Of course, questions of actual membership
(paid or not, corporate vs individual) have not been worked out... but
then none of these questions were worked out when we elected the
interim board either.

I would prefer to broadcast that a new election will be held to the
three above-referenced lists, let people nominate themselves and then
hold an open vote. The new board can then get on with the business of
opening bank account, getting incorporated as a non-profit, working
out the membership model, etc.

Cheers,

Keith

On Mar 24, 6:09 pm, Andrew Walker <andrew.mason.wal...@gmail.com>
wrote:

[Andrew Walker]

I agree that the broader community should be canvassed for
submissions.

My opinion is that we'd end up with a better team if you guys do the
selection from that pool though.

Maybe we should do a poll on the meet-ups to see if anyone actually
minds you guys doing the selection for the first year, before we
engineer an unnecessarily complex (and time-consuming) solution? Not
a big fan of big-up-front.

Also, democracy can have limitations - I'm not sure the broader
community would take into account the characteristics required to
actually make this work (like commitment, organisation, PR, sales,
sponsorship..?). We've seen this in the city groups as much is in the
central group (referring to the time commitment comment above).

If there's a neat voting mechanism that somehow insures against
rigging though, I'd rather start that than coelaborate on the
detail :)

[Richard Durnall]

Hey Andrew,

I agree with your points with the exception that I do feel that the board should be selected through a democratic vote. I also understand your concern that this is more time consuming than letting the existing board select the new team, but I do think it will be worth it.

I'm going to organise another meeting in Melbourne in the coming weeks. We could use that for a ballot if we can coerce candidates by that stage?

Opinions and thoughts from the list?....

Rich

Richard Durnall
Principal Consultant || ThoughtWorks Australia
Level 14, 303 Collins Street,
Melbourne, Vic, Australia 3000.
(W) www.thoughtworks.com
(E) rdur...@thoughtworks.com
(T) +61 3 9691 6500 || (F) +61 3 9691 6550 || (M) +61 403 852 003

[Andrew Walker]

Richard,

I think I'm a lone voice, so the "I's" have it with democratic
election!

It's the technically correct answer anyway, I agree with that too.

Would it be posisble for someone within the existing board to take the
lead on how that will work mechanically (perhaps you?), then kick it
off in the next week? I don't think there's anything standing in the
way, or any reason to deliberate further.

Let's get on with it.

Andrew.

On Mar 25, 9:31 am, Richard Durnall <rdurn...@thoughtworks.com> wrote:
> Hey Andrew,
>
> I agree with your points with the exception that I do feel that the
> board should be selected through a democratic vote. I also understand
> your concern that this is more time consuming than letting the existing
> board select the new team, but I do think it will be worth it.
>
> I'm going to organise another meeting in Melbourne in the coming weeks.
> We could use that for a ballot if we can coerce candidates by that stage?
>
> Opinions and thoughts from the list?....
>
> Rich
>

> *Richard Durnall*

> Principal Consultant || ThoughtWorks Australia
> Level 14, 303 Collins Street,
> Melbourne, Vic, Australia 3000.

> (W)www.thoughtworks.com<http://www.thoughtworks.com>
> (E) rdurn...@thoughtworks.com <mailto:rdurn...@thoughtworks.com>

[Richard Durnall]

Hey Andrew,

I'm not on the existing board but I agree that we need someone from the existing board to pick this up.

I think the existing board is....

Steve Hayes (President - VIC)
Mike Allen (WA)
Mark Mansour (VIC)
Ben Hogan (NSW)
Jeff Smith (NSW/QLD)

Hopefully someone will step forward to pick this up, otherwise we should look to find someone who doesn't intend to run to manage the process.

Rich

Richard Durnall

Principal Consultant || ThoughtWorks Australia
Level 14, 303 Collins Street,
Melbourne, Vic, Australia 3000.
(W) www.thoughtworks.com

(E) rdur...@thoughtworks.com

(T) +61 3 9691 6500 || (F) +61 3 9691 6550 || (M) +61 403 852 003

[Steve Hayes]

Ah Rich, with the "someone who doesn't intend to run" you revealed your hand.

I can handle the mechanics of voting so long as people aren't in a rush - family relocation will take precedence.

Here's what I would do if it was left to me:

1) Allow anyone who declares they are either resident or working in a state or territory to nominate to represent that state. The nomination would need to be accompanied by a position statement along the lines I outlined earlier. Correspondence would be via a new gmail account I set up just for this purpose. Close nominations in two (2) weeks?

2) If no nominations from a particular state or territory are made, announce this and extend nominations by one more week.

3) Notify the group of all nominations by email. Accept votes over a period of 2 weeks (to another gmail account), on a state/territory basis, provided they're accompanied by a declaration that the voter is either resident or working in the relevant state/territory. Optional preferential voting by state/territory.

4) Announce the new board at the end of the voting period + 1 week (so I can add stuff up).

5) Give people one more week to challenge the results.

6) Confirm the results of the election. Elapsed time 6 weeks.

Cons of this approach - there's no reasonable (time/effort) way to validate email addresses. There's no membership requirement either. So the results are based on trust. To balance this, I would reserve the right (but not the obligation) to question nominees via phone to ensure they seemed to be people involved in the local agile community. I don't expect to need to do this, but I want the base covered. I have no vested interest in the outcome of the election.

These are my first thoughts rather than my considered thoughts, so I'm happy to consider changes!

Steve

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[Richard Durnall]

"Ah Rich, with the "someone who doesn't intend to run" you revealed your hand."

Astute as always Mr Hayes :)

I think this all sounds good - thanks for agreeing to do it and safe travels....

Rich

Richard Durnall
Principal Consultant || ThoughtWorks Australia
Level 14, 303 Collins Street,
Melbourne, Vic, Australia 3000.
(W) www.thoughtworks.com
(E) rdur...@thoughtworks.com
(T) +61 3 9691 6500 || (F) +61 3 9691 6550 || (M) +61 403 852 003

[Steve Hayes]

Anyone else yes or no?

[ROWETT, Katrina]

Hi, I am happy to help Steve logistically/adminsitratively – although mostly my time can be offered on the week-ends… Steve let me know – we can hook up and divvy tasks if you want…

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[Steve Hayes]

I'm declaring nominations for the Agile Alliance Australia (A3) board open, effective immediately. Nominations by email to a3.nomina...@gmail.com will be accepted up until midnight Perth time, April 15.

Nominations should include:

1) Name (reply-to address will be used for contact)

2) The state/territory in which you which to nominate (you should reside or work in that state/territory)

3) A position statement on the goals of the A3 and how you would go about achieving these goals

4) A statement demonstrating that you have considered the time required to be on the A3 board and that you have that time available

5) Anything else you would like to include for relaying to members

If sufficient nominations are received by April 15 I will collate the nominations by state/territory and send them out to this list with voting details.

My main concern here is that we won't receive enough nominations, particularly across regions, so please consider nominating.

Regards,

Steve

[Andrew Walker]

Steve,

We were discussing this last week with Ben Hogan at our monthly
management team meeting in Sydney.

I think everyone feels a little worried that we'll end up with Vic and
NSW, perhaps not the others.

Would it be possible to get Jeff Smith and Mike Allen to sponsor a
rustle-up in QLD/QA respectively?

Ben also suggested I volunteer to start the process on formation of
the not-for-profit, which I'll kick off. I think we've had an offer
of some accounting and legal support. here.

Thanks,
Andrew.

[Ben Hogan]

As a volunteer run not-for profit, I think it is important that the AAA use what momentum we have available, I'm keen to let Andrew run with some initial work on the not-for-profit entity in Australia and to discuss our relationship with the US based agile alliance with them.  Any objections?  If not, I'd encourage Andrew to keep us in the loop on this list how he progresses with Phil Brock (US AA) and the entity formation.

To help Andrew with this it would be great to get an update from Steve as to where we are up to, I know Steve was nominated to be on the international committee of the US AA, but I'm not sure if any meeting has occurred yet. 

Reminder! Call for nominations for the board of the AAA is open! Closing in 9 days! See Steve's email re-posted below.

regards,

Ben Hogan, Interim Board Member

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Steve Hayes <steve...@cogentconsulting.com.au>
Date: Thu, Apr 1, 2010 at 12:47 PM
Subject: Re: [agile-alliance-australia] Re: Proposal to elect a new board for Agile Alliance Australia

To: Agile Alliance Australia <agile-allian...@googlegroups.com>


I'm declaring nominations for the Agile Alliance Australia (A3) board open, effective immediately. Nominations by email to a3.nomina...@gmail.com will be accepted up until midnight Perth time, April 15.

Nominations should include:

1) Name (reply-to address will be used for contact)

2) The state/territory in which you which to nominate (you should reside or work in that state/territory)

3) A position statement on the goals of the A3 and how you would go about achieving these goals

4) A statement demonstrating that you have considered the time required to be on the A3 board and that you have that time available

5) Anything else you would like to include for relaying to members

If sufficient nominations are received by April 15 I will collate the nominations by state/territory and send them out to this list with voting details.

My main concern here is that we won't receive enough nominations, particularly across regions, so please consider nominating.

Regards,

Steve

Andrew.

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[Richard Durnall]

Hey Ben, Andrew,

I hope you had a good break....

I think we should hold fire until the nominations are in and the board is elected. It is probably correct but a little presumptive to assume that we'll set up as a not for profit - I also think it will be difficult to appoint officers without having the new board in place. I think this will be the first activity of the new board following the election. They will need to regroup, engage the US AA and start to move us in the right direction. I don't feel it's appropriate to do this before the board is in place and I do share peoples frustration with the pace of progress to date.

I'm happy to let Steve's proposal play out and once the new board is in place they can move things forward. Of course it's entirely possible that I've missed something so let me know if I have.

More thoughts and opinions....

Rich

Richard Durnall
Principal Consultant || ThoughtWorks Australia
Level 14, 303 Collins Street,
Melbourne, Vic, Australia 3000.
(W) www.thoughtworks.com
(E) rdur...@thoughtworks.com
(T) +61 3 9691 6500 || (F) +61 3 9691 6550 || (M) +61 403 852 003

[Steve Hayes]

We have NSW, Vic and Qld so far. Mike?

[Steve Hayes]

+1

[Steve Hayes]

On 06/04/2010, at 10:18 AM, Ben Hogan wrote:

As a volunteer run not-for profit, I think it is important that the AAA use what momentum we have available, I'm keen to let Andrew run with some initial work on the not-for-profit entity in Australia and to discuss our relationship with the US based agile alliance with them.  Any objections?  If not, I'd encourage Andrew to keep us in the loop on this list how he progresses with Phil Brock (US AA) and the entity formation.

Andrew (or anyone) can do research and take notes on what would need to be done to setup as a not-for-profit, but I don't believe any actions should be taken until there's a new board. If Andrew's on it, great. If not, the material can be passed on.

As to relationship with AA overseas, they don't have any current plans on how to handle national groups. Small point, but I don't think it's the "US AA" - it's THE Agile Alliance - they do plenty of things in the northern hemisphere, just not much here. My personal perspective is that a relationship with them is very low priority - get the Australian house in order first and TELL them what you want the relationship to me.

To help Andrew with this it would be great to get an update from Steve as to where we are up to, I know Steve was nominated to be on the international committee of the US AA, but I'm not sure if any meeting has occurred yet. 

I was nominated, but received no further communication. I've sent a few emails with no replies. I could have been more thorough, but it wasn't a personal priority

[Mike Allen]

Hi Steve,

WA will definitely nominate at some point in the next week.... you
can count us in!

Cheers
Mike

[Andrew Walker]

Steve,

I'm good with that. I'll warm up contacts - by the time we've got
some basic meetings and options, the elections should be done anway.

Andrew.

[Steve Hayes]

Just a reminder that this deadline is closing in.

So far we have two nominations from NSW, one from QLD, and none from the other states/territories.

Steve

[Steve Hayes]

The nomination deadline has been reached. Here's the summary (this is repeated in the attachment, along with nomination statements).

NSW

• Andrew Walker
• Jason Yip

Queensland

• Robin Mack

Victoria

• Richard Durnall
• Perryn Fowler

Western Australia

• Mike Allen

The nomination statements are attached below. I’ve done minimal formatting - I hope that you’re mostly interested in the content.

Process

1. Nominations for other states and territories (SA, TAS, ACT, NT) will be extended for one week, however based on experience and the composition of the previous board while I would welcome nominations I don’t expect to receive any.
2. As Robin and Mike are the only nominees for their states I declare them elected unopposed.
3. Votes for NSW and Victoria will be accepted for two weeks (until midnight Perth time on April 30) to a3.voti...@gmail.com. Voting is in principle optional preferential, but since we only have two candidates in each case simply nominate your preference.

[Steve Hayes]

The election deadline was reached last week (apologies for taking a while to post the results). The results of the voting for NSW and Victoria are Andrew Walker and Richard Durnall respectively. After the extension there were still no nominations for any other states or territories.

The new board for the Agile Alliance Australia is 

Andrew Walker (NSW)

Robin Mack (QLD)

Richard Durnall (VIC)

Mike Allen (WA)

I think that my election-related duties are complete, and I'll leave it to the new board to take it from here. Ben Hogan is the owner of all the electronic resources, so reach out to him if you need anything.

Good luck!

Steve Hayes

<a3_nominations.pdf>

On 01/04/2010, at 12:47 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:

[Andrew Walker]

Steve,

I'd like to take this opportunity on behalf of the new rabble - to
thank you and the original board for getting us to this point.

As I'm hoping our members will appreciate, it's no small task to get
something this significant off the ground and gaining momentum day by
day.

A special thanks to you in particular, for accepting to take over the
admin of re-election whilst moving country (if I understand
correctly).

So, "thanks" - and all the best!

[Mark Mansour]

Steve,

I'd also like to thank you for your effort from the previous board.
You've been a bedrock to the Australian Agile community.

Mark

--
Mark Mansour
The easiest way to manage your Agile project
ma...@agilebench.com
http://agilebench.com/

[ROWETT, Katrina]

Ditto!

-----Original Message-----
From: agile-allian...@googlegroups.com [mailto:agile-allian...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of Mark Mansour
Sent: Wednesday, 5 May 2010 9:01 AM
To: Agile Alliance Australia
Subject: Re: [agile-alliance-australia] Re: Proposal to elect a new board for Agile Alliance Australia

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[Steve Hayes]

Thanks Andrew (and others). I wish I'd been in a position to do more.
As it turns out I've spent a week in India, but other than that I'm
still in Melbourne for a while (about to become close to immigration
lawyers and relocation specialists!).

I'll be interested from afar.

Steve

[Andrew Walker]

Ok, Robin, Richard, Mike - could I please get each of you to send me
your contact mobile and email address (to andrew.mason.walker -at-
gmail.com).

We can kick off our first meeting, agree agenda beforehand.

Time to demonstrate some momentum!