Working Groups Guideline

Working groups are emergent collaborations that form to focus on a specific goal that contributes to a broader community. Some working groups form to do a specific tasks, and then disband. Other working groups form to support long-term processes that contribute to the broader community. Working groups may also merge, split, or reorganise.

Joining an existing working group (that is open to additional people) is done at the initiative of members themselves, it is not an assignment. Likewise, anyone should be able to initiate a new working group. Access resources managed by community as a whole depend on the broader community participatory governance practices.

Why form working groups?

Working groups can help distribute workload within MCI by:

• Clarifying roles - if you want to talk to someone about an area of work you aren't usually involved in, you know who to approach. Individuals also gain more clarity about what their portfolio of work at Loomio includes, and helps them focus their efforts.
• Support self-directed workflows - each group is able determine their internal processes for deciding what to work on, when. This helps continually move work forward.
• Delegating decision-making within-scope: responsibility for certain areas of work can being held by small groups of people, who are empowered to move forward without checking in with everyone else about the details.
• Facilitating decision-making beyond-scope: when a working group needs to make a decision that goes beyond their scope for empowered delegation and affects MCI more broadly, they can do any relevant background research and facilitate a wider discussions to inform a proposal that can present to the committee for a decision (and allocation of relevant resources if needed).

Suggested operating procedure for working groups:

• Naming: use a name for the working group that describes the key function or goal of the group, e.g. "Special Events Working Group"
• Scope: define tangible goals and timelines for the working group. e.g. "Organise a special event in the MCI space every 2 months"
• Members: identify those involved in the working group, and a way for people to join, if appropriate. Articulate
  • Within broader groups with delegated leadership, leadership representatives within the working-group may take responsibility for reporting on decisions, milestones, and sticking-points at leadership meetings. This representative will also be responsible for presenting proposals for any resources required from the broader group.
• Rhythm: decide on a the timeline required to meet the working-group goals, the frequency of meetings, and task-turnaround rhythms for the working group
• Internal Communication: use a dedicated communication tool for internal working group communications (e.g. a Slack channel)
  • Use relevant naming convention and descriptive title, e.g. #wg_special-events.
  • Include a channel description on info on the goals and rhythems of the working-group, along with current members and if/when/how additional people can join and a link to the groups Trello board (if any).
  • Consider using Slack polls and other functions to involve people in decisions, set meetings, etc.,
• Communication to/from broader Maker Community: post key milestones/decisions to the broader group (e.g., in the wg_updates Slack channel). Member from the broader community yet outside the working group can then ask any questions, comments, or feedback, which the working group can take on board. These updates can also serve as a opportunity for the rest of the team to communicate to that group (e.g., if someone not involved in organising Special Events has a question or suggestion for it, they know where to post it.)
• Task-monitoring: decide on a process for proposing tasks, deciding on who is responsible for those tasks, and tracking task progress (e.g., in Slack, or Trello, or elsewhere).
• Documentation: decide on how/where to save any collaborative documents used by the working group (e.g., is this on the group's shared drive or elsewhere)

Examples/ Further Resources

• Loomio's Working Group guidelines

tags: collaborative-practices discussion-prompt