Board/Minutes/2023-06-S2S/Action items and suggestions

From OpenStreetMap Foundation

The board had a a six-hour, facilitated screen-to-screen board meeting on Saturday 17 June 2023. Below are most 1) action items and 2) suggestions noted down during the meeting.

UPPER CASE as written by board members/facilitator during the meeting.

Action items

Board

  • ACCOUNTABILITY: Proactive notification of delays/not being able to do self/assigned actions.

Arnalie Vicario

Craig Allan

  • EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Craig Allan to talk with Guillaume Rischard about the Executive Director topic.
  • STRATEGIC PLAN: Craig and Sarah Hoffmann to share an updated plan for the plan by mid-July.
  • STRATEGIC PLAN: Craig and Sarah Hoffmann to inform the board how they can be kept in the loop regarding the strategic plan.

Guillaume Rischard

  • WEBSITE: Guillaume Rischard to contact Paul Norman regarding his proposal and see if his proposal is still valid. Get Paul to communicate with the Engineering Working Group. Get a budget estimate.

Mateusz Konieczny

  • Post thread on community.osm.org regarding benefits and support with Local Chapter and communities
    • will consult with board
  • Mateusz Konieczny to post regarding the value proposition for OSMF to local chapters

Mikel Maron

  • COMMUNICATION: Mikel Maron and Arnalie Vicario to have a meeting on communication.
  • FUNDRAISING: Mikel Maron to take the work of the fundraising committee, formulate it and share with the board. Share the funding package and fundraising one sheet to Board
  • FUNDRAISING: Mikel Maron to address Arnalie's concern regarding fundraising's value (aside the infrastructure) for the community. Discuss with Arnalie identifying community value in the campaign
  • FUNDRAISING: Secure resource to help with design assets
  • FUNDRAISING: Launch broad based campaign mid July
  • Draft blog post on campaign for community consultation

Roland Olbricht

Sarah Hoffmann

  • STRATEGIC PLAN Sarah Hoffmann and Craig Allan to share an updated plan for the plan by mid-July.
  • STRATEGIC PLAN Sarah Hoffmann and Craig Allan to inform the board how they can be kept in the loop regarding the strategic plan.

Suggestions by individual board members (no implied consensus)

WEBSITE. Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

  • Find someone on Engineering Working Group (EWG) to work on getting adequate specification for the task.
  • EWG to work with Paul Norman to get an updated proposal.
  • Board to ask EWG regarding Paul's proposal.

Action item: Guillaume Rischard to contact Paul Norman regarding his proposal and see if his proposal is still valid. Get his to communicate with EWG.

COMMUNICATION. Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

  • Get another board member to help.

Action item: Mikel Maron and Arnalie Vicario to have a meeting on communication.

Allen Gunn (facilitator) offered to join.

INCOMING ENQUIRIES to the board and Licensing Working Group (LWG). Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

  • Communicate legal needs. People might be interested to bolster their reputation.

Allen Gunn (facilitator) offered to ask legal people.

ORGANIZATION/FOUNDATION OPERATION. Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

  • Create message to community for getting large tiers for companies.
  • Communicate fundraising goals to the community.
  • Structure corporate tiers as a "menu" (paying for specific tasks/things).
    • Like, but hard sell to the European community.
    • Needs correct framing, to collect money only on things that we already want to do. Frame it as diversifying? Menu rephrased on expenses that we have.
    • Instead of "buying that" -> "your money allows to" and mark the items very highly.
    • Get a list with things they do NOT get: Not a seat on the board etc.
  • Have regular communications with community.
  • Develop community communication strategy.
  • Fundraising conversation start with impact in the world.

Action item: Mikel Maron to take the word of the fundraising committee and formulate it and share with the board.

Redesign and make explicit our relations with the LOCAL CHAPTERS. Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

  • Need to give organisations better incentive to become Local Chapter. E.g. the Local Chapters and Communities Working Group (LCCWG) has power to put things on the board's agenda. Have voice in the decisions.
    • Discussed at 'Birds of a Feather' session during the State of the Map US 2023 conference. Governance not appreciated as much by the community yet. Arnalie Vicario wants to discuss open-governance with the communities.
  • Add Local Chapter support to the fundraising agenda.
    • Also mentioned during State of the Map France 2023.
  • Fundraising together with LC and support local initiatives. Will reduce confusion about OSMF/OSM-US etc if made explicit in the fundraising.

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR. Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

  • Discussion of whether to hire someone for this position. Not proceed with the assumption we definitely need to do this.
    • Have a focused discussion on this. A lot of operational tasks that the board is doing.
  • Mobilise Working Groups. Decentralise board tasks.
  • Executive Director to focus on fundraising and high-level communications.
  • Define the role (e.g. talking with Overture is a board remit, while writing emails to late funders could be an Executive Director task) - keep the Executive Director out of strategy, as the position is not elected.
  • Ensure to communicate with the community and not spend money that it is not a community priority while also having a budget deficit.
  • Make a draft and send it to the Communication Working Group (CWG), reiterating why we think an Executive Director is a good idea.
  • Make clear within the board why we want an Executive Director. Seems like we try to solve a social problem with a tech solution.
  • Have a formal resolution and communicate that.

STRATEGIC PLAN. Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

  • Keep from the comments out the future and funding - no direct implications and future boards not bound by the plan.
    • The plan has implication on budgeting.
      • 3 digit number of items. Most won't make it into the budget but dropped as less important.
      • Plan will be trimmed by prioritisation and to-do list in the next years.
  • Contents: Include in the plan an update mechanism for the plan.
  • Communication: Add strategic plan briefing to the board on-boarding primer.
  • Communication: Produce a community version from the strategic plan before the next community consultation.
  • Compacting: Define a "minimum viable product" (what does success look like, goals and milestones that need to be hit).
  • Timeline: Decide on a date when something needs to exist and then work backwards.
    • The shortest the timeline, the longest community consultation.
    • E.g. End of August - have a concise version, goals and key priority actions for the board, designating who is the stakeholder to take forward the more detailed plans (e.g. for operations - what we're expecting from them and when)
  • Timeline: Have community consultation time-bounded, e.g. two weeks.
    • Not set dates for the community, but only internally.
  • Process: Officially update the plan once or twice during a board's term.
  • Process: Quick iteration cycles within the board.
  • Process: Set-up a GitLab space for the strategic plan.

FUNDRAISING. Suggestions

Action item: Mikel Maron to address Arnalie's concern regarding fundraising's value (aside the infrastructure) for the community.

The value proposition for OSMF to LOCAL CHAPTERS. Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

  • Consult with LCCWG and communities that want to become Local Chapters (LCs).
  • Be organisational partners.
  • Provide server capacity space or Amazon credits.
  • Make clear that OSMFs provide infrastructure.
  • Go to the LCCWG and said that they can put something on the board's agenda.

Action item: Mateusz [after State of the Map Brasil 2023 gets ok from the trademark subcommittee] to create a community post about SotM Brasil organising team asking for the server space for SotM Brasil 2023 website and got it.

How OSMF should continue to PROFESSIONALISE itself, including paid staff. Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

  • Articulate strategy in clear way.
  • Professionalise Human Resources, have more policies in place.
  • Have sustainable funding in place first.
  • Investigate viability of employing further staff.
    • Scope strategic plan actions first.
  • Not treat future hiring as unavoidable.

Review next steps on OSM.org website development. Suggestions

Suggestions during the meeting. No implied consensus.

Pending issues, not addressed

  • Publication of collaborative notes from meeting. (Post meeting note: decision to publish the action items and suggestions pad)
  • Joint finances/fundraising with local chapters.
Retrieved from "https://osmfoundation.org/w/index.php?title=Board/Minutes/2023-06-S2S/Action_items_and_suggestions&oldid=11022"