Ubuntu Wiki

This is BOF session from USD MTV.

LoCo Teams Discussion - 06+07 Nov 2006 - The Honourable Jono Bacon presiding

https://features.launchpad.net/distros/ubuntu/+spec/loco-teams

Consensus: ready for drafting

Problem: How to make LoCo teams better?

Agenda

• Summary of whether or not if people are happy with what we are doing

• LoCo categorizations

  • Country
  • Language

• Issues with LoCo team operations?

  • Leadership
  • Operations

• Inter-LoCo Communications/Coordination

• LoCo Council

• Compiling Best Practises

Summary of changes to LoCos

• Feedback
  • What's working?
    • Documentation and best-practices are helping

      • What do I do to start a good working LoCo?

      • Scope for it to be improved, good editing for the Wiki is necessary.
      • Make the Wiki a real resource for people.

    • Now that Jono is working on this, LoCo teams are getting good activity.

  • What's not working?
    • "I prefer getting no mail than your mail. ;)" -- Jorge to Jono
    • Dealing with things chicago style :P
  • What's the feedback process?
    • Before Jono, it was ad-hoc, and basically non-existant.

      • (The reason for that was that at first we were trying to figure out how to best do stuff, and then smurf had to go away and do some work that actually paid his bills )

LoCo Categorizations

• What are the parameters for establishing a LoCo at various levels: city, state, parish, country, etc.?

• Teams of overlapping groups are OK if there are valid reasons to do so.
• Teams should have different personalities.
• Jono would prefer to see fewer teams with more contributors
• Mako says that it makes sense to have more than one organization to do different things.
• It makes a lot of sense to have large groups for pan-country issues, but smaller teams for local teams who get together.
• In Brazil, there are regional teams that co-ordinate with the big Brazil team.
• This happens organically, but it is important to define explicit scope for these groups.

• Mission statements for LoCo teams are not well defined. This should stay fluid to adjust the scope.

  • Specific suggestions and more of the ?? good stuff

Leadership Issues

• Jono: people to lead their loco teams and key community members to run the loco project
• CC is currently arbitrating LoCO team issues
  • what structural things can we put into place to help prevent issues

• Italy was one of the first LoCo teams to have leadership problems.

  • There was a person who came along and became a team leader
  • He did a huge amount of work and built the team
  • As the team grew, there was tension between the team and the leader
    • Disagreement about the role of leadership
  • It was obvious that the leader was not leading by example, but by rule.
  • But he had put in a lot of time and energy in the past, so he dictated policy.
  • This caused strife and resentment.
  • The team eventually went into chaos
• Conflict resolution that goes to authority does not scale and does not solve problems.
• Two issues:
  • Choosing the leader in the first place
  • Solving conflicts between potential leaders
• Not all teams have declared leaders (e.g. Chicago) -- they have contacts, not leaders
  • Concerning Chicago, leaders can cause issues as they have in the past - this is a community project, not one person running a team, and I prefer to keep it open with management or leadership issues being voted upon - Rich J - nixternal
  • Mako says that many of the best teams have no leaders. Jono mentions the UK as an example.
• Comment: Should there be a conflict resolution path written down and published?
• The CC is not the SCOTUC (Supreme Court of the Ubuntu Community). "Fist of Justice!" An Iron Fist!
• We should document the leadership models and best practices for leaders.

• Discussion around joining/splitting LoCos

  • integrating loco teams in the same physical location

  • fracturing loco teams due to <insert whiny excuse here>

  • Splitting loco teams due to valid concerns.

• Strong leadership personalities leading LoCos sometimes make the loco weaker

• Jorge discussed points about Ubuntu Detroit and how his team was feeling a bit unused/out of place/not needed.
  • The entire area is running Ubuntu so the main awareness component is no longer a draw.

Inter-LoCo Cordination

• There are groups out in the wild who we aren't that familiar with
  • Jorge gave the example of Ubuntu-California which nobody had heard of "and they kicked ass".

• Mentoring of other LoCo teams

  • e.g. Australia mentoring the NZ team
  • Melissa has been working on a document to further define mentoring
  • This is a separate spec
• How do we identify what good things are and how do we share them with each other?
  • loco-team list
  • forums
  • Need to improve our documentation and wiki pages
    • perhaps create a landing page on each of the topics and then link to various related information.
    • make it continually easier to find
    • float up success stories upstream, like marketing team
  • Richard suggested a tip of the week

LoCo Council

• Mako indicated that bureaucracy should only exist if it helps solve a problem - note my comment about Ubuntu Chicago above concerning leaders (nix)
  • some discussion regarding a few others specs which discuss councils, resolution processes, etc.
  • Mako indicated that a council might exist for reporting (e.g. to CC, to UWN, etc.)

  • A LoCo council might exist to bless new LoCo teams and approve members on behalf of the community council

• Consensus: We don't need a LoCo Council at this point.

Best Practices

• Jono started a how-to on how to create a team on the Canonical wiki which consists of ideas on how to implement a team
• Jono discussed the upcoming loco launchpad integration spec
• Discussion around having loco team websites and resources linked directly from ubuntu.com either de.ubuntu.com or ubuntu.com/de for example
  • this would be limited to approved teams
  • must fit a common template
• The process of going from a proposed team to an official team primarily focuses on membership. The website shoudn't be a top focus.
• Wikis not websites

Action Points:

• clean/revise existing LoCo Documenation

• point prospective LoCo creators to seek advice from other teams / LoCo-contacts on how to setup a LoCo

• documented conflict/leadership resolution prodcedures
• document leadership models + leadership best practices (easy to read)
• pursue pre-screening with an application process and an area for discussion
• clarify the conflict resolution process which has been referenced by several other specs, including this one.

• People who want webspace for LoCo team must be approved teams. Need to clarify in the docs.

Comments

• MikeBasinger: A LoCO Team section could be created on the forums, to be used from cross LoCo team communication.