Re: Temporaray enlargement of the GNOME Board with 2 persons

[Anne Østergaard <anne oestergaard nu>]

man, 05 06 2006 kl. 17:52 +0100, skrev Alan Horkan:
> On Mon, 5 Jun 2006, Anne [ISO-8859-1] stergaard wrote:
> 
> > Date: Mon, 05 Jun 2006 15:42:04 +0200
> > From: "Anne [ISO-8859-1] stergaard" <anne oestergaard nu>
> > To: foundation-list gnome org
> > Subject: Temporaray enlargement of the GNOME Board with 2 persons
> >
> > Hello all GNOME Foundation Members,
> >
> > About the size of the present board.
> >
> > The Board would like to propose to you a temporary enlargement of the
> > board with two persons: Behdad Esfahbod and Germ�Po�ama�> >
> > Background:
> > Not so long ago we had a Reducing Board Size Referendum
> >
> > "Should the board size be reduced from its current 11 directors to 7
> > directors?"
> 
> The way I always thought of the purpose of the referendum was that it
> should be possible - in fact it is a necessity - that others beyond the
> official board be involved in organising.  The number of people on the
> board seems to be a symptom of the fact that it is difficult to get people
> involved and helping out with the foundation any other way.
> 
> > The board is at the moment of the opinion that a GNOME Board of 7
> > persons should normally work and be enough, provided that we have a
> > staff person who can take part of the work load.
> 
> Being officially on the Gnome Foundation board is a nice way to provide
> more recognition for the people who work on behalf of Gnome but is it
> really necessary to give official titles to get people to help out in this
> way?  (Perhaps it is, I'm assuming nothing at this point and I certainly
> dont want to discourage those who work to help keep the Gnome Foudnatoin
> organised.)
> 
> Would a board of 15 people get huge amounts of work done, or would it
> hamper decision making?
> 
> Could there be some kind of a secondary board, or council or committee or
> whatever you want to call it with a more fluid membership formed from
> those actively helping at any given time, requiring only a nomination from
> reallythe board?  That might give the flexibility required and provide another
> way to recognise all the work being done on our behalf.

I really think this is a good idea. 

We need to be better at delegating. But we get stuck when we talk about
how it should be done in practice.

However we have asked different members of our community for help and
gotten it at several occasions, so I guess we are learning.
 
Having a list of persons who has got time and energy to help prepare a
case and make a recommendation to the board should make it so much
easier for the board.

I am all for that we let foundation members and even not yet foundation
members sign up om a helpers Wiki page telling a little about which
interests they have, how long they have been involved in the GNOME
project, which kind of things they have helped out with before etc.

But until we have found a proper form for how we delegate tasks I am
afraid that we are short of heads and hands.

Lets have an informal BoF at GUADEC on good delegation practice in
GNOME.

I am all for it.

Anne