¶ Goals and tasks
The tasks proposed in this document are guidelines and not rules to follow. If you know or find better ways to achieve the goals of this role, go ahead and do it!
¶ 1. Ensure the group has the right goals and strategy
What we work on is often more important than how efficient we work on it. That's why it's important that each group has the right goals and strategy (the way to achieve those goals).
The best way to decide which goals and strategy is right for the group, is by deciding that together as a group, instead of it being decided by yourself as coordinator, because better ideas are created collectively with diverse perspectives, and because we're more excited and invested to work on plans that we've helped create.
As a coordinator, you should make it easy for others to work towards the goals of the group:
¶ Organise and simplify the work
- Break down goals into projects or areas of work, and break that further down into tasks. The more concrete the work to be done, the easier it is to do.
- Define roles. This gives everyone in the group clarity about what they are responsible for and what others are responsible for.
- Ask and encourage people to help in a with a given project, task or role.
- If there is not enough people for all the work, work together with the integrator to find and integrate more people into the group.
- Document, organise, and share all relevant information for the work of the group: goals, strategy, projects, roles, tasks.
¶ Facilitate collaboration and connections within the group
- Organise (recurrent) meetings: every week or couple of weeks.
- Organise (online / in person) working sessions.
- Ask people of the group what help they need with the work that they are doing, and organise that help (either by helping them directly or finding others that can provide that help).
- Create secure communication channels for the group to communicate, and ensure that everyone in the group has access.
- Provide a secure place to share and find documents of the group, and ensure that everyone in the group has access.
Work together with the integrator for the care of the group. They are also responsible for the wellbeing of people in the group, especially new people.
- Ask people how they are doing and if they need any support, and organise that support. Also care for yourself! share with the group what you need and how they can support you.
- Organise meet-ups, meals, discussions, or other activities where people can connect with others and find purpose and joy.
- Share gratitude and appreciation to the people in the group for dedicating time, energy, effort, and care.
- Prevent burn out: together with the integrator, proactively grow the capacity of the group so that there is enough people to do all the work, no one is doing too much, and people can take time off when needed.
- Ensure at least 3 people have access to each system, so that the group doesn't get locked out of systems.
- Ensure that there at least 3 people in critical roles in the group. So that critical tasks still get done if one leaves the group or is not available.
- Ensure that people in critical roles can be quickly reached.
At some point, there will be too many people or too much work in the group for you to coordinate alone. At that point, it's useful to create subgroups, each with their own coordinator:
- Propose to the group the creation of subgroups and ask who wants to coordinate those groups.
- Train the new coordinator of the group and share this document and other useful resources with them.