[meego-network-fi] Team activity and meetings

From: Jarkko Moilanen <jarkko.moilanen@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: meego-network-fi@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Date: Tue, 4 Jan 2011 10:10:05 +0200

Team activity and meetings

I'm not here to dictate how things are done. My role is to assist the
community, a kind of enabler (when and where possible). My language or style
of communication might seem rough. I am used to presenting opinions and
ideas without sugarcoating (right or wrong). It is not my intention to
offend anyone, but issues need to be discussed without hiding behind
excessively polite sentences.

Teams are the core of our community. Most of the 'work' is done in teams.
Here's some thoughts about the teams; how I see their work and role.
Feedback and constructive critic is welcome. Some of the points given below
are close to what I presented in previous emails. The intention is to have
discussion about this issue on the list and based on that, create guidelines
concerning the team work and how it relates to meetings. Everyones input is
needed. Without more twaddling, here it goes:

1. Teams should be easy to contact. This was discussed yesterday in the
community meeting. Team leads are responsible for adding suitable contact
information in our pages at wiki.meego.com. It is up to the team what
information is added: email address, phone number, wiki page. Minimum could
be that there is irc nick (teams lead) and one email address. Currently wiki
pages describing the teams are where new members try to find information
about the teams. Step into the boots of a newbie and check if all needed
information about the team is given to enable easy participation.

2. The latest news, results, ideas and problems are presented in each
community meeting. In the future team leads (or members of the team) should
add whatever needs to be told about your activity -briefly-, use short
sentences and bullet points. The section "Team reports" will be a permanent
section in future meeting agendas. If the team report says: nothing to
report, it will be skipped. Remember that possible new members might be
reading this information. Needless to say that active teams lure more
members.

3. Contributing to team efforts is simple. Join the team and participate.
Presenting ideas outside the team is great and desired, but joining team and
contributing to team efforts is more effective way to get things done.

4. Team work (as well as community level work) should be done mostly
between the meetings, NOT during the meetings. Having in-depth discussions
in the meetings is not desired. Of course there can be exceptions, some
issues must be discussed in details during the meetings, but in general keep
it short. The meetings are more for presenting summary of what has been done
and chance for questions and clarifications. Questions are good and desired.
But before asking the question in mind, ask yourself "Is community meeting
the right context for my question or could I ask in the community channel
perhaps after the meeting or use google myself?"

The tips given in wiki (http://wiki.meego.com/IRC_Presentation_Tips)
regarding IRC meetings, are worth reading. The tips are mostly for persons
presenting items, but might help others too to understand the nature of IRC
meetings. Below is modified copy of the above mentioned wiki page content:

1. Know what to say: IRC meetings are entirely text-based and can move very
fast, so you won't want to spend the whole meeting improvising. At the
minimum, spend some time thinking about what you plan to say, or better yet,
have a text file with some key points that you can paste into IRC to get you
started when introducing the topic.

2. Learn the meeting process: Review the agenda and logistics for your
meeting in advance (examples:
http://wiki.meego.com/Local_MeeGo_Networks/MeeGo_Network_Finland#Online_Community_Meetings).
To give you a feel for a typical meeting, you should review the meeting logs
for the meeting where you are attending. (example:
http://trac.tspre.org/meetbot/meego-meeting/2011/meego-meeting.2011-01-03-17.58.html
)

3. Be familiar with IRC: If you haven't spent much time in IRC, you should
spend a couple of hours in #meego or another channel talking to people. You
should also read our MeeGo IRC guidelines, which also contain links to IRC
primers and other useful information, resume writing service

4. Invite the right people: Please do not forget to invite the right people
for your topic. This is your responsibility as the presenter to make sure
that you have the right people in attendance. You'll want to make sure that
you have people in the meeting to answer detailed questions or provide
additional information.

my 0.02€

/Jarkko
---------------
Community Manager (MNFI, Meego Network Finland)
Organizer (TMN, Tampere Meego Network)
Email: jarkko dot moilanen at meegonetwork dot fi
Location: Tampere, Finland

More info: http://meegonetwork.fi
Discussions: irc.freenode.net#meego-fi

[meego-network-fi] Team activity and meetings

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