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3/6/2018 6:26,Overview,,,,,,,,,"The GWG is to be commended for managing effective pace in the discussions and pulling together the outcome of these.  The recommendations meet the five attributes identified, and it is likely that the devil will be in the detail of how these reach fruition.  The overall package raised a couple of queries in regard of the initial aims that I reflect here:

- Who will have ownership/oversight of the different roadmaps?  This is relatively clear for the individual components, but it would be useful to define broader ownership and oversight within the groups proposed.  It is implicit (the Components Council), but could benefit from being explicit in this context.
- There is a valid focus on technical roadmaps.  Was the position of non-technical roadmaps also considered?  It may be useful to reflect this, covering e.g., organisational development, marketing, advocacy, etc. as a counterpoint to technical roadmaps.  The Community Coordinator would clearly have a role in taking these forward, but on the basis of owned and agreed ways forward.
- Emphasising the capturing the formal contributions will be helpful.  To what extent would this focus on 'formal' contributions as defined, or would it be more  a formal way of acknowledging both formal and informal contributions?  What would be the actions if a Partner was not felt to be contributing accordingly?
- The relationships between the different groups makes sense overall.  Where there is a need for annual reporting to the Partners, how is it envisaged that this take place?  Whilst there is good attention to the structures of Steering and Components Council, it is less clear how the Partners themselves would be organised to play the role intended.",
3/6/2018 6:31,Governance Recommendations,Partners Will provide Contributions to the Community,It will be of value to make it clearer how Partners can make a contribution through the sub-group proposed.  To what extent does this lead to actions if a Partner is viewed as not being in good standing?  How would this be taken forward?  Questions to consider as we move forward rather than challenges and setting up a WG on this will be helpful.,,,,,,,,
3/6/2018 6:33,Governance Recommendations,Hire a Community Manager,"This question addresses both prospective hires, but maybe the community manager mostly (given the breadth of activity outlined).  To what extent is it viewed that either or both of these roles are full-time?  Or does that require further attention in scoping them out (which would affect the funding call to be made)?",,,,,,,,
3/6/2018 6:40,Governance Recommendations,Elect Partner Representatives to Samvera Steering,"How was a 3-year term reached as a period of office?  Whilst this can be renewed and is a reasonable length of time, I would like to propose making the length of term 4 years, to be extended by 2 years if renewed, to add greater stability in the short-mid-term without compromising the benefit of turnover.

Why was it felt that each Partner institution could have only one Steering member?  Whilst I appreciate that there is a benefit in having a spread of Partner representatives this feels a little artificial in possibly preventing good people from being part of how Samvera runs.",,,,,,,,
3/6/2018 6:42,Governance Recommendations,Establish a Components Council,"What was the basis for having only the Product Owners on this Council?  Whilst there is an obvious focus there, it would be beneficial to have a small number (2-3?) of non-Product Owners as neutral participants to complement the specific Product Owner interests.",,,,,,,,
3/6/2018 6:44,Governance Recommendations,Delineate Roles and Responsibilities,"How is it envisaged that the reporting out to Partners take place?  Who would be receiving these reports?  I assume this could be in the form of a Partners meeting (like a shareholders meeting) that is formally recorded, but are other ideas being considered?",,,,,,,,
3/6/2018 6:50,Prioritized Implementation of Recommendations,,,,Hold Elections for Steering,"It will be important to have a clear statement of quoracy in determining what a valid vote would be.  This would reasonably 2/3 of whatever body is finally agreed upon to be the electorate given the nature of the change being undertaken.

What would be the way forward if a vote did not agree to the recommendations?  Does this suggest that one of the options in the vote needs to be 'Refine recommendations and re-vote' and another of 'Maintain status quo' so that we get a clear message of which direction to go in rather than an unclear outcome if the recommendations are not accepted.

There is mention in this section of candidates volunteering for a 1, 2 or 3 year term, whilst the original recommendation talks only of a 3-year term.  Is this to introduce the cycling of membership?  Going forward it would be good to get candidates to stand for the longer term to provide greater continuity.",,,,,
3/6/2018 6:53,Governance Working Group Member Dissent,,,,,,"I would support the dissent expressed.  The community has shown a desire to coordinate technical efforts and this will no doubt be enhanced by a coordinator.  But there is a more urgent need to better coordinate community activity, which will help to serve both the technical development and non-technical development through better communication and coordination generally.  As stated elsewhere, to what extent either post needs to be full-time in the first instance could usefully be explored further.",,,,
3/7/2018 21:22,Other,,,"Overall I think the recommendations have potential but some things are still unclear for me.  

First, I'm unsure as to what the technical coordinator will do that justifies the expense.  If the component council is functioning properly then I think that it may well be able to cover most of the duties assigned to the technical coordinator.  

Second, I'm left wondering how partners have voice and accountability in defining roadmaps.  AFAICT each component bears the responsibility of sourcing a PO, defining roadmap, and day to day maintenance/administration of the code (addressing PRs, issues, questions, and promotion).  This provides independence which is important but then what power does the tech coordinator have?  Following the org chart, I feel like partners direct influence on roadmaps is weak or not well defined.

Third, labelling solution bundles as components makes for wide variations in code size, roadmap, number of community sprints, volatility, and coordination needs.  This could be overcome, but it will be very hard for the component council and tech coordinator to balance these and avoid politics of unequal attention or boring those uninterested in Hyrax and Hyrax-based apps.  Maybe a different configuration is necessary?

Overall, I think it would be good to try implementing the prioritized recommendations through 7 (component council).  I think that will be plenty of change to handle for a while and will allow us time to assess the structure and need/role for the paid positions.  More work could be done in this time on process for these bodies (steering, partners, component council, and components) which would help strengthen the community and feedback into understanding the next steps of governance change.  I think it too hasty to try to implement the paid positions without first undertaking further analysis of the dynamics and various needs of components and having shared understanding and acceptance of the contribution model.  

I'll try to provide an analysis based upon Ostrom's design principles of commons but don't have the time to do that right now.

FWIW, extrapolating the org chart I see:
Steering accountable to Partners via elections
Tech Coordinator/Community Manager accountable to Steering via job/salary
Partners accountable to Community through contributions/good standing
Partner contributions monitored by tech coordinator?
POs accountable to component community/partners via elections/appointment?
Components Council accountable to Community via POs elections/appointments?
Steering is judicial body that appeals can be made to and has final decision?",,,,,,,
3/7/2018 11:22,Prioritized Implementation of Recommendations,,,,Identify Existing Steering Members to Serve on Steering,"The rules for recommendation 3 are too weighted towards keeping existing steering team members (""Three (3) existing members of Steering will serve on Steering for the purposes of on-boarding, knowledge transfer, and succession planning."") and towards pulling in their close associates to expand the steering team(""Existing Steering members who do not serve on the reconstituted Steering are eligible for election during the first election cycle. Should they be elected, they are eligible to run for a second term once the first term is completed."").

While continuity and history are important, new perspectives and new ideas are critical, so a balance should be struck that brings in new players and new thinking.",,,,,
3/7/2018 11:25,Prioritized Implementation of Recommendations,,,,Hire a Technical Coordinator,This should be moved up to position 4 or 5 as something that needs to be very quickly addressed.,,,,,
3/7/2018 11:31,Prioritized Implementation of Recommendations,,,,Hire a Community Manager,"The priority of this item need to be 5 on the list, not 9. Staffing needs are too critical to be something left for ""later"". Find the money and hire for items 8 and 9 as soon as possible.",,,,,
3/7/2018 10:09,Governance Recommendations,Hire a Technical Coordinator,"I agree that the Technical Coordinator should be first priority, given that one of our biggest challenges has been adequate coordination, resourcing, and release management of key components. Given that we will need to raise multi-year commitments of as much as $200K per position from Partners, I think it's likely we will need to start with one staff position (or even part of one if seconded from another institution or from existing DuraSpace staff) rather than two.",,,,,,,,
3/7/2018 10:13,Governance Recommendations,Establish a Components Council,"I think that the membership of the Components Council and what constitutes a core supported component may need to be examined a bit more. For example, Avalon is not currently in the samvera GitHub org (Avalon 6 is in avalonmediasystem, Avalon 7 is in samvera-labs because it is currently under development). However, Avalon has many interdependencies with and is contributing to development of other components, and it would make sense for it to be represented on the Components Council.

The role of the Components Council in arranging for development and maintenance sprints is unclear. I assume that the Components Council will not be coordinating all development and maintenance activities for all components, and that individual institutions will still contribute resources in some cases directly to particular components such as Hyrax or Avalon. If this is the case, it would be good to make that more clear. If it's not the case, then I think that's a problem.",,,,,,,,
3/7/2018 10:20,Other,,,"Overall, I think this is the start of a solid governance framework, and I commend the group for its work. I am generally supportive of all of the directions outlined, including making Steering an elected body, placing contribution requirements/expectations on Partners, hiring centralized staff, and establishing a more formal process for technical coordination across projects. However, enough pieces of the framework are undefined (which I understand is largely based on the timeframe that the group was given) that it would be difficult for me or my institution to vote to adopt the model in its current state. This is particularly an issue in regard to the Partner Contribution Model- It's difficult to vote for a major change such as this without understanding what it will cost us. I would suggest that the process be revised somewhat so that the Partner vote in early April is a vote on whether or not to continue to move forward with developing this model rather than a vote on adopting the model. Then, assuming Partners vote to move forward, a group could be put together to further develop key aspects of the framework, including the Partner Contribution Model and initial charters for the various groups. After that, a formal vote could be taken to adopt the framework.",,,,,,,
3/7/2018 10:24,Governance Recommendations,relationship of Solution Bundle projects to the governance framework,"The issue of how solution bundle efforts, such as Hyrax or Avalon, are governed is left unaddressed in the recommendations and proposed model, beyond being represented on the Components Council. This may be OK, but it does mean that such projects will likely need to develop their own governance structures and processes rather than be able to ""plug in"" to an existing defined structure such as the Apache PMC framework, potentially making projects less transparent to partners and other community members. I think this might merit some discussion, perhaps at the March Partner Meeting.",,,,,,,,
3/5/2018 13:16,Governance Recommendations,Associate Product Owners to Community Owned Components,"I don’t believe “Product Owner” is actually defined in this document. While it might be premature to include a list of specific responsibilities, I would suggest that a couple sentences on what the term “product owner” means would be helpful in avoiding different people assuming they know what it means and not having the same idea.  (Perhaps in the “Glossary”? But not necessarily)

The treatment of “product owner” I found on wikipedia was in the article on Scrum, where it suggests: “The product owner should focus on the business side of product development and spend the majority of their time liaising with stakeholders and should not dictate how the team reaches a technical solution.”

My understanding of the “product owner” role is that it is a non-technical stakeholder representative, and the product owner determines what features should be developed and how (including prioritization and requirements/acceptance criteria), but is not involved at all in determining the technical implementation — not involved in determining what code to write or the architecture. Just what the product should be.  The technical team then determines how best to meet the needs expressed by the product owner. 

I’m not totally sure if this is the same understanding the report has of the role.  I totally agree with the goal mentioned in the report, “Clearly articulated relationships between groups that make decisions and groups that get things done” — I _think_ the “product owner” is of the “make decision” group, with developers being in the “get things done” group. 

The relationship between them isn’t entirely clear to me from the report. 

If it’s true that the “product owner”, as in my understanding of the usual meaning of the role, is _not_ enforcing technical decisions (“how the team reaches a technical solution”, code and architecture decisions) — it’s not clear to me what role or entity _does_ have the responsibility and authority for this latter.  As a developer, lack of clarity here has been one of my biggest “governance” related challenges.  I don’t _think_ this recommendation addresses it, which may be quite fine, it’s maybe just not in scope for what the governance recommendations intend to address at the moment.   I think it might be helpful for the document to just acknowledge/clarify that though, lest some readers think it is making recommendations about how those technical decisions are made when it does not intend to.  Unless of course it _does_ intend to, in which case that needs to be made more clear, as it was not to me.  (Again, I don’t _think_ a “product owner” role involves technical/implementation decision-making, but if the recommendations mean it to, then the document needs to be more clear on this). ",,,,,,,,
3/5/2018 16:45,Governance Recommendations,Establish a Method for Creating Standing Working Groups,"I'm wondering if the standing working group is where metadata concerns are addressed in this governance model? Metadata tends to live in the space between technical requirements and end-user communities so it's not really addressed by the Technical Coordinator position or the Community Manager position, from what I am understanding. Is metadata considered an ongoing need in the community (like the Helpers group)?",,,,,,,,
3/5/2018 16:57,Governance Working Group Member Dissent,,,,,,"Similar to the concern raised here that technical aspects are being preferred over non-technical aspects in the community, I am concerned that metadata issues are going to fall through the cracks or lose a seat at the table in the governance model as it currently stands. If there are metadata issues, do they have to be aligned with a single community owned component in order for them to be addressed? How is metadata documentation (or any other help documentation) organized and maintained when the technical aspects are managed as components? Even though there's a possibility to break things down technically, there is still an overall metadata scope that has to receive attention so the components can fit together. Maybe that fits within the Technical Coordinator's role but it would be helpful to make that explicit if that is the case.",,,,
3/5/2018 11:21,Governance Recommendations,Associate Product Owners to Community Owned Components,"It seems that the process for  selecting and associating Product Owners will come from the Components Maintenance Working Group.  If so, I think that other working group's recommendations should be incorporated into this governance proposal when it is reported at the March Partner meetings.   The two proposals seem to need to work together, at least in regard to code governance - which was much of the initial impetus for sending us down this road.  Great work so far, but I'd like to see recommendations on how Product Owners are selected (meritocracy - I'm not opposed as I don't know how else we would do it, but we should be transparent about this), a recommended (repeatable?) term, whether for some products (Hyrax), employers should be prepared to give up release time to a Product Owner, and whether for some products (Hyrax), a Release Manager - and/or a Standing Committee -- is needed as well as a product owner, and then the same questions apply to the Release Manager and the Standing Committee.  Also, these comments bleed into the Components Council - should it include Release Managers and/or reps of Standing Committees?  It's possible we want some of these issues to evolve over time but then we should be explicit about needing this resolution over the next 18 months or so.  Thank you.",,,,,,,,
3/5/2018 11:22,Governance Recommendations,Establish a Method for Creating Standing Working Groups,I am of the opinion that Hyrax (and possibly Avalon and Hyku) requires a Standing Working Group.  I think this should not be deferred to Steering to establish a method - but should be part of these governance recommendations.,,,,,,,,
3/5/2018 3:56,Overview,,,,,,,,,"All

I was unable to join the webinar last week because of the timing but I’ve spent the first part of this morning reviewing the recording.  Can I echo some of the thoughts expressed at the end of the session and thank everyone involved for a thorough and thoughtful job.  It will not come as a surprise to you when I admit to severe reservations about this whole process at the beginning; these are rapidly dispelling.  I shall submit some other responses to the recommendations via the form in the hope of clarifying some of the processes that will need to be undertaken in moving this forward and suggesting at least one small tweak.
",
3/6/2018 2:40,Overview,,,,,,,,,"Timeline:  I am not sure what exactly is meant by “Partners to hold a vote” and “Adopt a Governance model”.  What are the Partners voting on, exactly?  What to recommend to the Steering Group to adopt moving forward, or actual adoption?  Hydra (now Samvera) is backed by a legal document (the Memorandum of Understanding - MoU) that - on the surface at least - does not allow for Partners making a decision like this.  I suspect the legal way to do it is to recommend the proposals to existing Steering and have us move the Community towards them as quickly as possible.  This would also require a vote for adoption on Steering.  If the idea is to vote on adoption per se, then I think you would want to have Steering’s explicit agreement in advance to this process and a guarantee that they will stand by the result.  In this latter case you’d want to have an agreed voting mechanism and a very clear criterion for deciding the result.  (As I write this, emails are flying to try and tie this down.)  Either way, old Steering (likely with the GWG or similar) would then have to engage with lawyers to come up with a new MoU that embodies the recommendations of the GWG and provides for straightforward changes as things evolve over the years (are any legal changes ever straightforward)?  I guess with goodwill the initial legal changes can be done alongside other things progressing but I think, if that’s the idea, that some discussions with the old SG ideally need to take place ahead of time.

I’m concerned about the idea of a vote “on April 2nd“ unless this is the start of a voting window.  For instance, it’s a holiday in the UK and quite a lot of people here will go away for some time with children who are on school holiday – that could mean that some UK “voters” are not at work that whole week.  Also, might there not be some last-minute suggestions at the Partner meeting the Thursday/Friday prior?  In which case, a window beginning April 9th might be better, allowing time to incorporate some tweaks, if any, and getting clear of Easter-holiday-related timing issues.

Partnership and new MoU:  The make-up and operation of Steering, as well as its relationship to the Partners and therefore the Community is largely defined by the MoU.  A new MoU will be significantly different - perhaps significantly enough that existing Partners will need to ratify with their institution’s management (and maybe counsel) that they are happy with it.  It may even require asking them to sign a new Letter of Agreement.  Potentially this could lose us Partners but, at the moment, I think it may be a necessary step.  I might suggest that a draft new MoU be shared with Partners for comment but I know this would significantly delay the process - worthwhile? - I’m not sure.  All in all this is not likely to be a particularly short process and we need to be careful to fulfil legal obligations properly.
",
3/6/2018 2:43,Governance Recommendations,Hire a Technical Coordinator,"Hires:  Old SG has already had discussions with DuraSpace about the possibility of hiring one or two staff and the possibility of their involvement in the recruitment process is written into the 2018 agreement with them (Rosalyn thought it might not be).  Their advice is that a Samvera person hired on the Community’s behalf by a Partner would cost some $165k per year, or hired by DuraSpace on our behalf some $210k per year.  This on top of any other Samvera initiative funding that might be needed.  At the very least, we might need a guaranteed $200k pa to support a single hire plus other bits and pieces.  Split between 30 Partners that’s $6.7k each - and, I’d suggest, that won’t happen because some Partners are “cash poor” (as noted in the presentation) but contribute rather by in-kind contributions.  Obviously that increases the cash burden on the rest.  $400k per annum for two hires (no matter how desirable they might be) is a big, big ask.  Further, I think if you are going to get good people to apply you need to be able to guarantee their post for more than one year - thus, you’d need to have guarantees from your contributing funders.  I realize that there might be other ways (grants) to bring in some of this funding, but there’s going to need to be a lot of creative thinking!  I’d also comment that the idea of seconding someone from an existing post was raised at the November Partner meeting - still an idea to consider, I think, in order to mitigate some of the initial risks on both sides.

Steering, trying to get ahead of the game, had some discussions with DuraSpace in January that touched on the idea of sharing an employee (potentially employees) with them so that expertise can be shared in both directions (Samvera person(s) and DuraSpace team) - this could possibly reduce costs if a Samvera post did not really justify a whole fte.  However, it would change the nature of Samvera’s relationship with DuraSpace which is a different discussion.
",,,,,,,,
3/6/2018 2:44,Governance Recommendations,Elect Partner Representatives to Samvera Steering,"Steering meetings: “Meets monthly on-line & possibly once a year in person”.  From experience I’d say that a yearly f2f meet is essential (indeed I’d find it very easy to argue for two).  I think this should be a clear expectation for anyone who stands for the new Steering.  No matter how good the on-line communication system, there are some things that just don’t come across in such an environment - a situation that is exacerbated if Steering are not all US-based and thus may not be sharing the same cultural values and expectations in a particular situation.",,,,,,,,
3/6/2018 2:47,Prioritized Implementation of Recommendations,,,,Identify Existing Steering Members to Serve on Steering,"#3 & #4: Reconstituting Steering:  I am concerned that your recommended method for moving to a new Group may not adequately preserve the knowledge base or, as Rosalyn put it in the webinar, “honor the knowledge and history”.  Currently the knowledge base is spread across nine people and, by the proposed transition mechanism, you would immediately lose two-thirds of that.  I would propose, rather, a mechanism that is often used in other businesses and organizations instituting major change, that three of the existing Steering stand down “immediately” opening three new places, that at the end of year one three more stand down and are replaced, and that at the end of year two the remaining three stand down.  This preserves a broader knowledge base at the start of the transition and, actually, completes the changes to Steering a year earlier.",,,,,
3/6/2018 2:48,Prioritized Implementation of Recommendations,,,,Update the Bylaws for Steering,"#6 Update the Bylaws [including a] new section for Standing Working Groups:  in addition, I’d suggest that Steering itself may want to have formally established subcommittees - a finance committee springs immediately to mind. ",,,,,
3/6/2018 2:49,Prioritized Implementation of Recommendations,,,,Hire a Technical Coordinator,"#8 and #9 Hires:  First, slightly tangential concern.  How will you try to ensure knowledge transfer between the first person appointed to a position and their successor?  It seems to me this is something that might reasonably be addressed if/when people are in place.

However, there is a more urgent matter: the existing WG has functioned as Samvera’s secretariat and the GWG seems to imply that this function would devolve to a Community Manager in due course.  In the meantime, where is this function going to sit?  With the Chair/Chair-elect of the new Steering, or...?  The idea of establishing a “formal” secretariat was discussed at the Partner meeting in November but does not appear explicitly here.  However this is handled, the “secretariat function” ideally needs access to Steering meetings/calls - maybe ex-officio pending the Community Manager post if it’s not actually with a member of Steering. As noted in the webinar, it can be a non-trivial time commitment.
",,,,,
3/6/2018 2:50,Prioritized Implementation of Recommendations,,,,Assess Governance Recommendations,#10 Assess Governance recommendations:  18 months from when?  It seems to me there could be a variety of answers to that question and it would be useful to clarify the timeline.  From the result of the vote?  From the start of the new Steering Group?  Or…?,,,,,
3/2/2018 14:24,Governance Recommendations,Elect Partner Representatives to Samvera Steering,"I didn't think it warranted to dissent comment but I do still feel that candidates selecting which length of term they are standing for introduces an odd dynamic into the election process that might not lead to the best candidates being elected. I still think it would be best to have everyone stand on an equal footing, and then select terms after electing the top candidates.",,,,,,,,
3/9/2018 9:43,Overview,,,,,,,,,"Is there a way to work in language encouraging a commitment to backwards compatibility? This is a matter of all three of our guiding principles: planning, sustainability and inclusion.",
3/9/2018 9:45,Governance Recommendations,Elect Partner Representatives to Samvera Steering,"There was confusion about individuals vs. institutional representation on the elected steering, which we should consider clarifying. In particular Dan asked what happens if an elected steering member leaves their job at a partner institution and takes a job at a non-partner institution. ",,,,,,,,