In a community where we all help each other, there are teams that work together more closely on particular projects. Some teams are all staff, some teams are staff and community members, some are all community members. Sometimes members of other institutions are collaborating too, adding in new set of norms.
I'm wondering about project management, and I think i'm noticing two main aspects:
1) documentation for asynchronous collaboration
2) activities like goal setting, task tracking, and assessment that tend to happen in synchronous meetings
Here are some ideas i've heard lately about both
- Hold regular meetings (see https://publiclab.org/questions/liz/02-14-2018/meetings) for existing and new contributors
- Reserve the first 30 minutes for welcoming any new contributors and getting them oriented before diving in
- Alternatively, don't hold regular meetings, instead, improve asynchronous project communication, like an update board or pad, or...
- ....use a task tracker like Trello or Asana to have a dashboard of what is going on at any given point
- Invest in "research roundups" (see https://publiclab.org/questions/liz/02-14-2018/rounding-up-research-areas)
- Plan two week cycles of goal setting, daily work, and reflection ("sprint" style)
- Test out Jitsi (https://jitsi.org/) -- a powerful, open-source, community-driven video conferencing platform that securely connects users across browsers and devices -- because it has built in automatic transcription, making it easier to create a written record of what you discussed in your meeting
What do you think?