The other day I sent a response to the sakai advocacy list about what the new Executive Director's goals should be. Since this gave me a chance to bring forth a few ideas that I learned while working as the web services group manager for The Alberta Library, one of Canada's largest library consortia, it seems like a good place to start this weblog.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

It seems reasonable and timely to me to set the following goal for the E.D.:

* Consult as necessary and create a plan with initial technical implementation directions, resource estimates and sourcing, and a resultant workplan with timeline to "...integrate confluence, collab and the web site".

(Thanks for bringing this important topic up, Joseph!)

For those of us that prefer point form, that would look like:

Goal:
"...integrate confluence, collab and the web site".

Required Tasks:

1. Consult as necessary.
2. Create a plan with:
a) initial technical implementation directions,
b) resource estimates, and
c) resource sourcing.
3. Create a workplan with timeline.

------------------------------
Now here's the straw man part:
------------------------------

I set consultation and the creation of a plan as the natural first steps: Welcome to the Adminisphere, Chuck, where other people "work" and E.D.s "consult" and "plan" for it! :)

The description of technical directions with required work/money/people lets everyone know what proposed work the consultation realized and what resources are required to achieve that work; sourcing of resources will usually be community vs staff vs outside consultant.

Sourcing must be figured out, of course, in order to determine how long the work will take; if the resulting time line doesn't make sense relative to the rest of the project, well, iterate iterate iterate!

Sure, lots of Sakai goals will be brought up organically, seized by interested volunteers, and solved before the sun rises again in Cambridge (or, alternatively, handed to those of us in the Americas with our morning paper by our European or African counterparts!); however, as we know, big problems may linger for too long, or some work may not be appropriate for volunteers to initially lead, and that's where some process and guidance from the foundation may be required to finally solve a given problem.

A general model which might be applicable to many E.D. goals is:

E.D./Foundation Receives Hint of a Problem that JustIsn'tGoingAway ->

Consultation (Formalization of Problem) ->
Decide on Course of Action ->
Estimate Resources ->
Source Resources ->
Work with Resources to Determine Resultant Timeline ->

If looks good, then ->

Work! -> Mint Julep -> Glory -> etc. (-> evaluateboringboo!)

Otherwise ->

Iterate as Required from Consultation or Course of Action

I would suggest working with (at minimum) 3- or 4-month updates on your "targeting achievements" or whatever the foundation will call them; clearly these documents need to:

1. be available to all
2. live and grow

so that consultation goals become plan goals become action goals, and the E.D.'s goals on any one "task" shift accordingly throughout each project's lifecycle.... Of course, there will be many of these goals slowly rotating beside each other, like a field of many-sized windmills.... :)

Thanks,

Brian

p.s. -- "Coming soon: Issue Documents! Achieving Stakeholder Buy-in! Timeshifting Planning and Work Goals to Avoid Going Document Crazy! Dancing Lemurs!" :)

p.p.s. -- note that I didn't get into how to measure success, since that would really be putting the cart before the horse. What I was putting out there are are all very "soft" ideas about processes where quantitative questions like "How many members did he consult?" and "How detailed is his time line?" might be far less useful than qualitative questions like "How has Chuck's handling of Task X affected how the Sakai project is perceived by external academic watchers, relative to their trust, interest, and desire to pilot the Sakai project in their institution?" (which just might be a good evaluative question for Joseph's rewritten goal!)