Foundation Periodic Activities Tracker

It has been fairly obvious that for a number of years one of the
biggest problem the Foundation struggles with is remembering to take
care of things that need to be taken care of on some kind of periodic
interval.  We forget to file and let our foundation become inactive.
We forget to renew trademarks until the last minute, and so on.

To help improve this I'm going to try to lead efforts to create a
simple and effective periodic activity tracking checklist.  The heart
of the checklist is just going to be a table of activities that need
to happen periodically.  Attributes I plan to track include:

Name of Activity
Who is responsible (by role) - nothing to stop people from teaming up,
but one role should be the lead for anything
Frequency of Activity (ie annually, quarterly, etc)
Whether activity is legally required (vs nice-to-have)
Last time activity was completed
Next time activity is due
Link to details page

Then for each activity we can have a details page (or anchors in a
single page) that goes into the gory details.  I'd expect this to
include:
Links to appropriate laws/etc.
Recommended process to follow.
Links to helpful tools/forms/etc.
Where to find the information necessary to complete the step.
Where we store the official copy of the resulting deliverable.
Where interested users can find the deliverable (perhaps redacted), if
applicable.  I'd encourage as much transparency as possible (many
eyeballs/etc).
Links to bugs tracking past/current activity completions.

I'd just put all of this stuff on the Gentoo website in GuideXML/etc.
That is, unless somebody is aware of a tool we could leverage which
would better accomplish this while keeping things simple and being
aligned with our values.

Feel free to chime in here with suggestions for design
improvements/etc, but my intent is to get started creating and not
wait until things are perfect.  Any system of organization is going to
be better than what we already have.  Once the structure is in place
anybody can feel free to suggest additions to the list, and this
should be pretty easy to distribute among volunteers (even those
without commit access if you can modify a template xml file and submit
a bug).

Rich

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 5:59 PM, Rich Freeman  wrote:
> It has been fairly obvious that for a number of years one of the
> biggest problem the Foundation struggles with is remembering to take
> care of things that need to be taken care of on some kind of periodic
> interval.  We forget to file and let our foundation become inactive.
> We forget to renew trademarks until the last minute, and so on.
>
> To help improve this I'm going to try to lead efforts to create a
> simple and effective periodic activity tracking checklist.  The heart
> of the checklist is just going to be a table of activities that need
> to happen periodically.  Attributes I plan to track include:
>
> Name of Activity
> Who is responsible (by role) - nothing to stop people from teaming up,
> but one role should be the lead for anything
> Frequency of Activity (ie annually, quarterly, etc)
> Whether activity is legally required (vs nice-to-have)
> Last time activity was completed
> Next time activity is due
> Link to details page
>
> Then for each activity we can have a details page (or anchors in a
> single page) that goes into the gory details.  I'd expect this to
> include:
> Links to appropriate laws/etc.
> Recommended process to follow.
> Links to helpful tools/forms/etc.
> Where to find the information necessary to complete the step.
> Where we store the official copy of the resulting deliverable.
> Where interested users can find the deliverable (perhaps redacted), if
> applicable.  I'd encourage as much transparency as possible (many
> eyeballs/etc).
> Links to bugs tracking past/current activity completions.
>
> I'd just put all of this stuff on the Gentoo website in GuideXML/etc.
> That is, unless somebody is aware of a tool we could leverage which
> would better accomplish this while keeping things simple and being
> aligned with our values.
>
> Feel free to chime in here with suggestions for design
> improvements/etc, but my intent is to get started creating and not
> wait until things are perfect.  Any system of organization is going to
> be better than what we already have.  Once the structure is in place
> anybody can feel free to suggest additions to the list, and this
> should be pretty easy to distribute among volunteers (even those
> without commit access if you can modify a template xml file and submit
> a bug).
>
> Rich
>
>Hi Rich,
I put together this page [0] to get started. I put it in the secretary
directory and we can link to it from the foundation home page. Its
just a simple table and once the category's are set up it is easy to
keep updated. We could create a google spreadsheet with the same
category's and once that is set up transfer it to the xml page. The
Activity and status entry is just an example. If you want to send me
the data to put into the form just let me know. I can remove the page
if it is not what is wanted.
All the best,
David
[0] http://www.gentoo.org/foundation/en/secretary...

How about timely email reminders?
On Jul 17, 2011 8:06 PM, "David Abbott"  wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 5:59 PM, Rich Freeman  wrote:
>> It has been fairly obvious that for a number of years one of the
>> biggest problem the Foundation struggles with is remembering to take
>> care of things that need to be taken care of on some kind of periodic
>> interval.  We forget to file and let our foundation become inactive.
>> We forget to renew trademarks until the last minute, and so on.
>>
>> To help improve this I'm going to try to lead efforts to create a
>> simple and effective periodic activity tracking checklist.  The heart
>> of the checklist is just going to be a table of activities that need
>> to happen periodically.  Attributes I plan to track include:
>>
>> Name of Activity
>> Who is responsible (by role) - nothing to stop people from teaming up,
>> but one role should be the lead for anything
>> Frequency of Activity (ie annually, quarterly, etc)
>> Whether activity is legally required (vs nice-to-have)
>> Last time activity was completed
>> Next time activity is due
>> Link to details page
>>
>> Then for each activity we can have a details page (or anchors in a
>> single page) that goes into the gory details.  I'd expect this to
>> include:
>> Links to appropriate laws/etc.
>> Recommended process to follow.
>> Links to helpful tools/forms/etc.
>> Where to find the information necessary to complete the step.
>> Where we store the official copy of the resulting deliverable.
>> Where interested users can find the deliverable (perhaps redacted), if
>> applicable.  I'd encourage as much transparency as possible (many
>> eyeballs/etc).
>> Links to bugs tracking past/current activity completions.
>>
>> I'd just put all of this stuff on the Gentoo website in GuideXML/etc.
>> That is, unless somebody is aware of a tool we could leverage which
>> would better accomplish this while keeping things simple and being
>> aligned with our values.
>>
>> Feel free to chime in here with suggestions for design
>> improvements/etc, but my intent is to get started creating and not
>> wait until things are perfect.  Any system of organization is going to
>> be better than what we already have.  Once the structure is in place
>> anybody can feel free to suggest additions to the list, and this
>> should be pretty easy to distribute among volunteers (even those
>> without commit access if you can modify a template xml file and submit
>> a bug).
>>
>> Rich
>>
>>
> Hi Rich,
> I put together this page [0] to get started. I put it in the secretary
> directory and we can link to it from the foundation home page. Its
> just a simple table and once the category's are set up it is easy to
> keep updated. We could create a google spreadsheet with the same
> category's and once that is set up transfer it to the xml page. The
> Activity and status entry is just an example. If you want to send me
> the data to put into the form just let me know. I can remove the page
> if it is not what is wanted.
> All the best,
> David
> [0] http://www.gentoo.org/foundation/en/secretary...
>
> --
> David Abbott (dabbott)
> Gentoo
> http://dev.gentoo.org/~dabbott/
>

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 7:44 PM, David Abbott  wrote:
> I put together this page [0] to get started. I put it in the secretary
> directory and we can link to it from the foundation home page.Wonderful - you saved me 15 minutes of deciphering guidexml tables/etc!

Main change I'd make is not tracking start dates so much as last date
done.  I don't mind a link to a bug though to quickly locate the
in-progress item.  I see bugzilla as being a better tracker for stuff
that is in-progress, and this being more of a tool for knowing when to
kick off activity.

On the other hand, maybe an estimated effort/duration column might be
a useful thing, so that people know that if you haven't started doing
the tax forms the night before it is due is probably a bit late.

I have a working list I'll start adding to the template you've started.

Mike - regarding email reminders - certainly a useful thing.  Unless
somebody has a practical implementation suggestion I'd prefer to defer
that until we at least have the list up.

Rich

On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 17:59, Rich Freeman wrote:
> To help improve this I'm going to try to lead efforts to create a
> simple and effective periodic activity tracking checklist.you mean like the Gentoo calendar ?
-mike

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Mike Frysinger  wrote:
> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 17:59, Rich Freeman wrote:
>> To help improve this I'm going to try to lead efforts to create a
>> simple and effective periodic activity tracking checklist.
>
> you mean like the Gentoo calendar ?While clearly sticking an entry in the calendar 7 years hence saying
"renew trademark" is better than doing nothing, I'm not convinced that
is the best solution.

I see the calendar as being useful for reminders, but not a very good
checklist of things that need to happen.  Somebody might complete a
task and forget to put a new entry on the calendar (far easier to do
than deleting an entry from the tracking list).  Maybe somebody puts
an entry on the calendar, but not far enough in advance to take
action, or maybe ownership is unclear so nobody does anything until
the last minute.  And so on...

As I see it, this list would become the go-to place if somebody (a
trustee or interested volunteer) wanted to see when our last tax
filing was, etc.

The whole goal here is KISS - a list of things that need to happen and
when they happened last and need to happen next.  If all the future
dates are still in the future, then the foundation is essentially in
compliance, and if not it is not.

Rich

On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 15:34, Rich Freeman wrote:
> On Mon, Jul 18, 2011 at 2:31 PM, Mike Frysinger wrote:
>> On Sun, Jul 17, 2011 at 17:59, Rich Freeman wrote:
>>> To help improve this I'm going to try to lead efforts to create a
>>> simple and effective periodic activity tracking checklist.
>>
>> you mean like the Gentoo calendar ?
>
> While clearly sticking an entry in the calendar 7 years hence saying
> "renew trademark" is better than doing nothing, I'm not convinced that
> is the best solution.that isnt the only periodic entry for the foundation.  there's
paperwork filing, trustee meetings, etc...> I see the calendar as being useful for reminders, but not a very good
> checklist of things that need to happen.  Somebody might complete a
> task and forget to put a new entry on the calendar (far easier to do
> than deleting an entry from the tracking list).  Maybe somebody puts
> an entry on the calendar, but not far enough in advance to take
> action, or maybe ownership is unclear so nobody does anything until
> the last minute.  And so on...i didnt mean to say that the calendar is be a full replacement.  just
that all date related entries should be listed in the calendar.  then
things like "i want an e-mail reminder" is now a trivial end user
issue and not something we need waste time on the infra side.
-mike