Re: Seeking advice on team issues

[Clytie Siddall <clytie riverland net au>]

On 16/09/2005, at 5:10 AM, Roozbeh Pournader wrote:

> I am writing this email because of my frustration with a situation in
> the Persian GNOME team. I am seeking the advice of other people in the
> GNOME project.

Roozbeh, i feel for you, particularly, in this situation, since the  
team co-ordinator has to carry the responsibility and make the tough  
choices. The difficulty of getting clear rulings on copyright matters  
possibly only complicates the difficulty of managing a group of quite  
different people living all over the world, by email and/or chat over  
less-than-reliable connections.

Danilo makes the key point here: you have the authority. Don't try to  
please everybody: you can't. Make the best decisions you can at the  
time.

Don't take every failure personally. I have an excellent team-leader  
who, until recently, had no translators at all. He had put in a lot  
of effort, with no result, for reasons which are really cultural and  
situational, not personal at all. He put up another rather automatic  
plea on our mailing list and I got involved. He's my son's age, but  
he's the boss, and I do what he says. People who join a language  
team, whether they know it or not, do so under those rules.

I'm probably over-simplifying the problem, but it doesn't hurt to do  
that sometimes to a nasty tangle. The main thread is that the team- 
leader makes the decisions. Your team has evidently made a lot of  
progress under your leadership, so please don't let this unpleasant  
situation distract you from that fact. Translators come and go, as I  
will, when I am no longer able to translate. Keen and responsible  
team-leaders who persevere with that difficult job are outstanding  
assets, and we never want to lose one.

Hang in there. :)

from Clytie (vi-VN, Vietnamese free-software translation team / nhÃm  
Viát hÃa phán mám tá do)
http://groups-beta.google.com/group/vi-VN