Reps/Meetings/Council-2015-04-08
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Notes from the Mozilla Reps Council meeting on 2015/04/08 14:30:00 PM.
Contents
Attendees
Topics
Rep of the Month
- We are taking ROTM nominations for the 'outgoing month'.
- ie: Nominate Rep of the month for June until July 10th.
- Rep of the Month is like being a "Featured Rep" for that month/period, and not just based on one's activities for that particular month.
- Reps who have activities planned, but perhaps not completed yet.
- Reps who have done great work to-date.
Transparency
- How do we make discussions that are currently on alias/email-only more public?
- Deliberately moving to Discourse
- Taking better notes at meetings, with sharing right-afterwards for approval.
- Encouraging more sharing, even when we might be in the middle of things, or only in the thought-process vrs waiting until we feel the thought is fully-formed.
Question: Do we sometimes hold back out of fear, or need for things to be perfect, or thoughts fully-vetted? As a result perhaps we are making things worse, than better.
- yes there is fear about sharing something that may upset community before it's even properly defined or decided.
- yes, "when speaking on behalf of council I always try to be very clear so as not to give wrong impressions or misinformation, that can result in anger/frustration".
- Letting people see the discussion behind things might help better - less reactive more proactive in participating.
- Is the line on sharing : if the thought is clear?
Mentor Refresh Training
Mentor Refresh Training is coming up on Friday. This is held regularly to help mentors stay up to date on SOPs but this week it will also be a chance for mentors, council and peers to interact, ask questions solicit feedback on the Paris meetup share-out, so we can send to Reps next.
Reporting & Discussion on Reporting
Recently a Rep has stepped down, and sited reporting as a reason for doing so. This is concerning on a number of levels., and a few of us believe it's time to revisit reporting.
Types of Reporting
- Activities with Budget
- Activities with no Budget
Reporting on activities with Budgets, is agreed to be no-brainer. We need this to be accountable. Following-discussion is focused on reporting as a way to track activity.
- "Reporting feels bureaucratic"
- "Reporting as the way to stay a Rep - feels like we are trying to keep a certain type of person".
- "We worry that Reps feel they are struggling to report, and it's tedious. like school work blech"
- At RemoCamp we said its the only way to keep reps accountable.
- So really is the question is how do we identify active Reps, and is reporting the way to do that?
"Disagreement: there are other ways to keep people accountable - reporting is mostly about events, many other things leaders do, and could be otherwise reported"
Someone who might be doing a great job - it might seem like they are not accountable. But I think we need to ask ourselves is this the right tool, is this really accountability or does this just serve a personality that likes to report.
Accountability vrs 'Activity'. Suggestion: there is a difference in types of reporting. When dealing with finances, yes reporting and accountability is more strict, however if people are Reps and doing great work without budget - we're more interested in connecting with them KNOWING about their work, sharing it, praising - recognizing.
Question to send to Discourse in the lines of: "How can we raise the profile of work being done, and Rep activity without making it feel like homework aka one-way data-input"
Working with Functional Areas
Concern that we are dragging our feet on plans to work more closely with functional areas to understand their goals for 2015. We meet with Webmaker today, but who next? How do we prioritize projects - and identify people to reach out to.
Some concern that we will have overlap with new council joining and that this will delay this further into Q3
Perhaps Webmaker remains the first goal, and that as a result of this experience we can better draft out what the outreach and steps will be with nexxt functional areas.
Suggested order of Functional area outreach (not confirmed): FFOS, L10n, Firefox for Desktop, Firefox for Android)
action: Confirm top projects by activity level and project priority + contact names action: setup meeting (although this comes later as part of our identified workflow that results from Webmaker talks)
Welcome Packs & T-Shirts
- Some Reps still without Welcome Packs (nearly a year).
- Do we need to focus on different type of shirts / women's cut?
- Different shirt color (fading happens fast)
- Mention of using Reps patch instead of being shirt-specific (you can add your Reps patch to any shirt-kind-of-thing.
- Super hard to please everyone
- Mentor Welcome Packs are in the works.
- Konstanina will know exact status of both Welcome Packs, and we will reach out to her for feedback next week. NOTE: Konstanina is away this week, so this may be a bit longer.
Henrik's Support With Strategic Planning
Henrik with support of peers has reached out to help council with goals of being more strategic. He has sent a form with questions for us. Grateful for his help thinking and leading this conversation
- What is the most important OPERATIONAL topic(s) you handled in the last 7 days?
- What is the most important STRATEGIC topic(s) you handled in the last 7 days?
- Which OPERATIONAL topics would you like to work on?
- Which STRATEGIC topics would you like to work on?
- OPTIONAL: Anything else you want to say concerning the transition to a more strategic mode?
Council request to take time this week to fill this out.
Upcoming Reps Council Election
No exact date yet,approx 1 month, Nuke to follow-up
Council as Part of VP Onboarding
As part of council's identified leadership in Mozilla, a council member (Emma) was invited to be part of the new Mozilla Onboarding process for new hires - Emma spent an hour sharing community the Mozilla Reps program with Allison (new VP of People), and David Bryant (new VP of Platform Engineering)
Super great to have people onboarded at Mozilla with an awareness and appreciation of all community and Reps have accomplished, and have the potential to accomplish. ]]
