Meeting Sections
Group Norms
- John Towns - Based on 2024 Feb Quarterly Meeting - Lead the effort of creating group norms
Notes from everyone at the Quarterly Meeting - their suggestions for group norms:
This is one of the outcomes that was requested for this session. Normally this groundwork is laid at the beginning of a meeting/session. This is how to set up some norms.
Activity; Think, Pair, Share
Think:
What group behaviors would help the team be the best they can be? What should 6 or 7 norms be for how teams interact going forward?
For meetings: we will always have agendas and notes in a place where people can find it in a well known/searchable location.
Minimum bar - team has a folder and everyone uses it and there is a known and used way to document things
There is in internal reporting obligation/standard and people use it
Track norms: Determine how much visibility should Tracks have to other Tracks stuff
How do we share what is going on - and what is shared
More than private internal and fully public
Specify how the teams work together in an interpersonal, non-technical way - how do we engage as humans?
Create a process for vetting requirements and sharing requirements
Other teams - are these team norms? Group norm can be an action - Group Culture Norms and Logistics/Process Norms (how)
Access wide staff onboarding
Skillset roster - who to contact for certain things
Access wide newsletter - when have individual track meetings - have first 5 mins to summarize what all other tracks are doing and what are the opinions on what is going on
Everyone should be reading the newsletter
In group meetings - talk about the newsletter and what all other teams are doing
We are collaborative - AND what all is involved in that
Team should document decisions and plans - tell everyone about things and not live in the silo
Visibility of all plans of others so you can figure out what you are doing is consistent with your team AND project plans
Decisions we make in each meeting are connected somehow to overall program goals
Everyone is heard - responsibility to make yourself heard
Establishing trust - expressed as I trust you to help me and I hope you trust me to help you
Individual norms
Believe your contribution matters
Take advantage of opportunities
Speak up
Make space for new people and new ideas - can be heard
Less pride - more moving forward
May not be able to find Win-Win - but Win Lose and Lose Lose are highly collaborative
Following through on responsibilities
Ask for help if you need it
Linking Code of Conduct to some of the behaviors in meetings
Code of Conduct has actions - should find and read - at the bottom of every access web page
Revisit the vision for ACCESS
Step back and take a long term view - don’t focus on little things
Responsiveness
Preparation for meetings
Clarity of communication
Accountability - and a way to push back on decisions
Delegation - ask for help is OK
Workload expectation management - no one is 100% on Access
Hold EC accountable
Working Groups should be clear on what they are empowered to do
What is their specific relation to the EC
Meetings should be deliberate and directed back to the agenda if they get off agenda
Talk with everyone in the meeting
Collaboration for all
Mechanisms to push decisions down as far as possible so all people are involved in making it happen
Agendas solve problems of the moment
All members should discuss - not just give updates
Respect and compassion for each other
Connect with the person before you connect with problem
We each have different work cultures - even within the team
Don’t interrupt each other - let people finish
Shared objectives
In person interaction as much as possible
Validate others ideas when in discussions
Should we collect and assess conflicts that we know about? And make this a regular intentional thing.
We commit to using the tools we are learning here today.
Consultants will consolidate this list and send it to us along with a full report.
There will be action items needed to implement the group norms - the EC has the power to make this happen.
Outreach and Associated Working Groups
- Shawn Strande - Based on 2024 - Feb Quarterly Meeting - Create a new metric - based on potential users and outreach goals - if people fill out engagement spreadsheet with how many people attended their session - we could get a good data point
New Metric - a gap we currently have is potential users and outreach - if everyone who went to a meeting would put entry in spreadsheet - and count how many people attended their session it would be a good data point
- Shannon Bradley - research to see if the Engagement Tracker Google Worksheet can send out notifications when people make entries for future dates
To Do: suggestion for Engagement Tracker - trigger or alert - people get notified when people make entries for future dates - comms reaches out to support the person who is going
- John Towns - can we ask during allocation requests - how did you hear about us?
To Do: Can we ask during requesting allocation - how did you hear about us?
- Everyone - Make a list of every place you go in a year and estimate how many people you contacted during each event - place that in the Event Tracker - we can use that for metrics
To Do: Make a list of everyplace you go in a year - you would be surprised at how many people you contact - look over 2023 and enter your list into the tracker - it would be helpful for us to use for evaluation
- Dina Meek - check with ACO and EC and get OK to make a cheat sheet that lists if you talk to this “persona” you should relay “this” informaiton
From Tom: To Do: make a cheat sheet that says if you talk to this “persona” you should relay this info - and outreach can turn to listening.
- ACO - partner with advocates who run carpentry workshops - see if they can spread our information
From Tom: Planting opportunities with advocates who run carpentry workshops - if we can partner with trusted agents like that it could help.
- Dina Meek - section on the website and in our newsletters to ask more peple “Where should ACCESS go?” / “Invite ACCESS to come “here”
To Do: Rather than trying to project where we might go - should we put a note on the web site for “where should ACCESS go?” “invite ACCESS to come here” - this is $0 investment and could be beneficial.
ACCESS Usage and Reporting
- John Towns & Shawn Strande - ask Joe White to create a System Availability report - Show excess allocations that have been made - to provide an early warning system of what usage could be coming - could also impact outreach like we can accommodate smaller usage customers or something
Goals and Evaluation
- Shannon Bradley and Lavanya Podila Track Change Requests in Quarterly and Annual Reports
- John Towns and Lavanya Podila - capture how the change improved things from when ACCESS began
PY3 Plans
- John Towns Talk to Shelley Knuth about request for more administrative support - feeds to budget changes
Working Groups Strategy
- Shawn Strande - new working group operation strategy that provides for clearer path of communication from WGs to the EC and back (possibly including RACI strategy in the Chartering process)
- Shannon Bradley - investigate alternatives to RACI for nimbler response to requests from EAB, EC, RAC, etc.
- David Hart - committed to implementing RACI for his groups
- Shawn Strande - work with EC to determine if having a single point of contact with SME in chartering would help streamline the chartering process
- Shawn Strande - process for weighing needs to determine if there should be a minor framework, a working group, or a standing committee to get certain things done
- Shawn Strande - outline process for understanding the scope of decision making authority of a working group
- Shawn Strande - how can we make decisions and work completed visible outside the teams that are doing the work? So it can be reviewed to make sure we all are working on things we are supposed to based on project goals
- Lavanya Podila - create feedback loops for Standing Committees so they can report up and close out items as they are worked on and completed + close out activity flow as well
- Shawn Strande - create section in Charter that defines the purpose of the EC Advocate on the standing committee/WG - they should be making the decisions and reporting back or helping decide what things should be brought to the EC for decision making
- Shawn Strande - create a section of the Charter that defines what it means to be done and a target date for that to be complete (will not apply to Standing Groups)
- John Towns - determine a way to get anonymous feedback from SCs and WGs on concerns or frustrations and help address them
- Shawn Strande - bring this consolidated list back to the EC and decide if these will be done and have them take the decision back to their teams
Understanding Data Transfers
- John Towns - Suggestion: map where data transfers are - should we ask team to do this?
Overall Review
- Lavanya Podila and Shannon Bradley - Project charters are important and we should find a way to get the WGs the right help to get them done - this one change would go a long way