A thought on structure, from Feb. 16th call
Thom
Hearing the back and forth tonight, I think that what we are talking
about building is a federation. Alex, in particular, talked a lot
about preserving and amplifying the personalities of the cities
involved. So, while I think that talking to folks like the Apache
foundation is essential (who's heading that up?), I think the unique
personality of CrisisCommons is that there will be some sort of
central governance and central infrastructure, but that local groups
(state level? city level?) will have substantial autonomy.
In some sense, this reduces some of the focus on things like project
management and software lifecycle. This isn't to say that the central
commons can't or shouldn't make recommendations, since some sort of
commitment will be required for teams to work together. (For
discussion: what sorts of agreements need to be made?)
But what it does mean is that this governance group should focus on
determining what things need to be centrally determined and what
things don't. What aspects of our personality and culture are common
among the commons? What infrastructure should be centrally negotiated/
provided/managed? What is a framework for PM and SDL that allows
people to work together without unduly restricting their autonomy?
That's the feeling I got, at least, from tonight's call. Do others
agree, or do we think that in order to be successful we need to be a
more centralized organization?
Thom