Guidelines for Volunteer Working Groups

Introduction

A volunteer working group is typically formed as part of a larger organization, in order to reach certain goals, while working in accordance with the organization's principles. In order to be effective, the group must have some means of ensuring that its principles are safeguarded, and that its goals are reached. At minimum, certain questions will need to be answered:

• Who can participate?
• Who can make decisions?
• What is expected of each participant?
• What happens if the work doesn't get done?

If these matters aren't clarified, problems often result:

• Some members of the group do no work, but hinder the work of others by blocking decisions.
• Someone leaves the group unexpectedly, and the others must scramble to find a replacement.
• Some people repeatedly take on tasks that they can't complete.

A working group must also consider its relations with the outside world. Who will its work affect, positively or negatively, and how can they have a say in what the group does? If the group's work depends on the work of other groups, or vice versa, what will happen if those interdependencies are not met?

These guidelines are meant to provide ways of dealing with these questions. Working groups may adapt these recommendations to their needs.

The Written Charter

Each working group should have a written charter that explains its goals and principles. The charter must be published, preferably on a web site.

Publishing

Publishing information means making it publicly accessible. We recommend publishing on the Internet; however, other means of publication may be used.

Participation

Volunteers tend to be self-selecting, and gravitate towards the tasks that they're good at. The group's charter should make it clear whether special skills are required, and if so, whether the group is prepared to train newcomers in those skills. In most cases, if the charter is specific enough about what the requirements are for participation, it's fine to allow anyone to participate, as long as they agree to the charter; no additional screening is needed.

Implementation work

Work that contributes in a measurable way towards reaching a goal that the group has set for itself. It is the work involved in carrying out a plan, as opposed to the work involved in devising or agreeing a plan. It includes the preparation of documents that are needed in order to begin or carry out further implementation work.

Anyone who is doing implementation work in the group, or has done such work in the recent past (e.g. within the past two months), can participate in its decision-making.

For example, a discussion about what a bridge should look like is not implementation work. In contrast, if a person has poured concrete for the bridge, that person has done implementation work. So has the person who drew the blueprints. To some extent, everyone who participated in the discussion contributed to the blueprints, but we don't consider this contribution to be significant enough to give those people the right to participate in decision-making. Moreover, we've found that when participation in a discussion is counted as sufficient justification for decision-making rights, people who merely participate in discussions, but who do no other work, tend to block decisions, or slow them down so much that they don't matter anymore, and hinder the work of others. The concept of implementation work was introduced to prevent this from happening.

Projects

In this document, we will use the term project to refer to any unit of work that's significant enough for the group to take a decision about it. A project is formally initiated with a proposal. A proposal must include the following:

Goals

A brief summary of what you intend to achieve. This must include a precise description of the intended mesurable results, so that once the project is finished, someone outside the group could determine whether you reached your goals.

Duration or Estimate

How long you think the project will take. Depending on the project, this may be a hard-and-fast deadline, or a rough estimate. You can write 'ongoing' if the project consists of tasks that are to be performed as needed, or on a regular basis, throughout the life of the group.

Who

Who will do the work. This should be a list of enough names to make the project viable, including, at minimum, the author of the proposal. If the proposal is accepted by the group, those listed are considered to have committed to completing the project. Unless otherwise indicated, it is understood that others may join in if they wish.

Notice Period

How much notice participants will have to give if they want to stop working on the project.

Proposals must be published; we recommend using an Internet mailing list for this. Those who do implementation work then take a decision. Decisions should be taken by consensus, as described in Guidelines for Consensus Decision-Making, whenever this is practical. The group should publish summaries of its discussions, and of the resulting decisions, explaining why each decision was taken, which alternatives were considered, and why they were rejected.

Unexpected Changes

If it becomes apparent that the work will take longer than expected, or if you need to withdraw from the project, or put it on hold indefinitely, it's important to inform the rest of the group, before the estimated time has elapsed. If you are going to continue working on the project, a new estimate is in order. There may be others who are willing to help, or to take over the project, but they won't do so if they assume that someone else is taking care of it. Other projects, which you may not be aware of, may depend on the completion of your project; informing others of delay or cancellation allows those projects to adjust and consider other options.

If a group member repeatedly fails to meet their commitments, others in the group should consider pointing this out to them, and asking them to please be more careful about what they commit to. However, this is often a sign that a project needs to be rethought. For example, perhaps there are others who would like to participate, but the way the work is organized makes it difficult for them to do so.

Exclusion

Under certain conditions, which should be defined in the group's charter, the group may decide to exclude that person from the working group. For example, the charter might say that exclusion is an option if someone breaks more than two commitments in a row. In any case, if someone is excluded from a working group, participation in other working groups is not affected.

Trust

Certain kinds of important decisions need to be taken quickly and/or often; a group decision-making process may be considered too cumbersome in those cases. The group can therefore specify certain kinds of decisions which can be taken without a proposal, on the basis of trust. The benefits of these guidelines can still be maintained in these cases. If one or more individuals are trusted to make certain decisions on a regular basis, that responsibility can be considered a project, to which they make a commitment for a period of time, by writing a proposal as described above. The group can use the same process to decide to trust another group for a particular purpose.

In order to maintain transparency and accountability, trust-based decisions should still be published whenever possible. One simple way to do this is to keep a log, and publish it periodically.

Coordination Work

In every group, some coordination work will need to be done:

• Maintaining lists of priorities
• Maintaining a record of who is working on what
• Writing periodic summaries (e.g. every month or two) of what has been done

This information must be published. We recommend using a web site that all the members of the group can update.

It is possible for a volunteer coordinator to do all the coordination work, at least for a limited amount of time. However, this can end up piling too much work on one person. It is often easier, and more efficient, for everyone in the group to do some coordination tasks from time to time, as the need arises. We recommend that new groups try this approach. If coordination tasks simply aren't getting done, the group can then create a role for a designated coordinator or group of coordinators. Since this is likely to be a demanding role, no one person or group of people should keep it for more than a year, and shorter terms are preferable.

Interdependencies

As soon as it is formed, and from time to time thereafter, the group should examine its interdependencies with people and groups outside itself. Who is the group's work meant to affect? If the group fails to do what it has set out to do, who would be adversely affected? Who could be inadvertently harmed? On what does the group's work depend? Clearly, an exhaustive list is impossible. However, you can identify key interdependencies using the following approach.

Consider the inputs and outputs of your work. What materials, information, or other resources does your work require? What is produced as a result of your work?

Outputs

Clearly, someone is meant to benefit from what you produce. There are several things that can go wrong in relation to the intended beneficiaries:

• You can set goals that wouldn't actually benefit the people you intend to benefit, e.g. by solving the wrong problem.
• You can fail to reach your goals.
• Your work can be successful, people can come to depend on it, and you can then disappear, leaving them in the lurch.

To ensure that you're setting suitable goals, you can consult regularly with those who are meant to benefit, and/or allow them (or their delegates, or a random selection of them) to participate in your decision-making.

You cannot guarantee that your group will reach its goals, or that it will be long-lived, but you can make it easier for your intended beneficiaries to cope with the failure of your work, or the disappearance of your group. Keeping them abreast of your progress allows them to make informed decisions about becoming dependent on you. Other strategies are specific to certain types of work. For example, using commonly available materials will make it easier for your group to be replaced if necessary. In any case, the first thing to do is talk to the people who are meant to benefit, and find out what risks they're concerned about.

Some of your outputs may have unintended effects. The classic case is the pharmaceutical factory that develops a much-needed drug, but dumps toxic waste into the water supply. Another example would be a political event that alienates the people in its immediate vicinity, because it wrecks their neighborhood. It can be helpful to list your outputs, and consider what effects each of them could have.

Inputs

In the case of your inputs, often you are the intended beneficiary of work done by other groups, and all the same considerations apply. Of course, it will help if those other groups are Open Organizations. In other cases, you are using a public good, such as a natural resource or a public space; then the question is whether your use of that good will hinder others' use of it. There is one way to find out: ask them. Conversely, you could also consider what would happen if that public good disappeared, and what you could do to prevent that.

Monitoring your interdependencies, and acting to keep them healthy, could be one of your group's projects. In general, the easiest way to do this is to monitor your inputs yourself (e.g. by reviewing them periodically), and to have your outputs monitored by those who are likely to be affected by them. By publishing summaries of your work and of your decision-making process (including all proposals, and the reasons for their acceptance or rejection), you make it possible for others to monitor what you are doing. More detailed records of your discussions should be published as well, if possible. One easy way to do this is to use a publicly archived Internet mailing list. Delegates or volunteers, representing people affected in various ways by your work, could subscribe to your mailing list, just to be able to alert you to possible unintended consequences of your projects. If your work entails significant risk for others, you should consider including them in your decision-making process as well.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Licence. To contact us, please use the openorg-dev mailing list.

Translations

These are translations of an earlier version of this document.