Difference between revisions of "Decision process"

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Light-weight decision process for project-related decisions in the gnucash  
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This is the light-weight decision process used for project-related decisions in the gnucash project. The GnuCash Core Team agreed on this process in March 2016.
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project.  
 
  
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Mission Statement: The GnuCash core team will work to further the goal of the  
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== Mission Statement ==
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GnuCash project [1]: To provide free personal and small-business financial-
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The GnuCash core team will work to further the goal of the  
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GnuCash project <ref>http://www.gnucash.org</ref>: To provide free personal and small-business financial-
 
accounting software, designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible.
 
accounting software, designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible.
  
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What decisions are concerned in this process: We distinguish "high impact"  
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== Types of Decisions ==
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decisions and "low impact" decisions. The "high impact" decisions include  
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Two types of decisions are concerned in this process: We distinguish "high impact"  
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authorization to spend large amounts of money (>=$1000 [2]), as well as  
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decisions and "low impact" decisions.  
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partnerships, such as joining software conservancy, and also policy changes,  
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* The "high impact" decisions include authorization to spend large amounts of money (>=$1000 <ref>The threshold amount is meant as follows: Does the decision concern one or more payments totaling to this amount of money in the near future, e.g., as a single payment or as multiple payments over the next, say, 12 months.</ref>), as well as partnerships, such as joining software conservancy, and also policy changes, or the delegation of decision tasks to particular individuals in order to have them act in the name of the project.  
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or the delegation of decision tasks to particular individuals in order to have  
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* The "low impact" decisions include adding new members to the "core team" (explained below), or authorizations for smaller amounts of money (<$1000), or other decisions on which the project can change its mind easily with almost no losses.
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them act in the name of the project. The "low impact" decisions include adding  
 
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new developers to the "core team" (explained below), or authorizations for  
 
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smaller amounts of money (<$1000), or other decisions on which the project can  
 
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change its mind easily with almost no losses.
 
  
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Who is involved in this process: There is a "core team" that consists of  
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== Core Team Membership ==
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people who contribute to the project significantly, be it as a developer,  
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Decisions are made according to the following process by a "Core Team" of people who have made significant contributions to the GnuCash project as developers, documenters, administrators, by offering user support, or in other ways. Core team members are expected to participate in decisions at least to the point of registering agreement or disagreement with every proposal. Core team members are subscribed to the non-public gnucash-core@gnucash.org mailing list and are expected to monitor that list regularly. Contributors may join the core team either by requesting to or by being nominated by a current core team member and being approved by the "low impact" decision process. Core team members may resign at any time, and members who have not exercised their decision making responsibilities for more than 1 year may be asked to resign by any other core team member.
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documentation writer, user support, or by other means. The core
 
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team members are subscribed to the (non-public) gnucash-core mailing list.  
 
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Developers can join by asking for it or being proposed for it, and getting a
 
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"low impact" decision for confirmation (or by some alternative approval
 
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process on which the project has agreed upon). The minimum effort required for
 
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core team members is to agree or disagree with proposals in a reasonable way.
 
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Developers can leave by asking for it anytime. Developers whose participation
 
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ceases for more than 1 year can be asked by anyone of the core team whether
 
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they might want to leave the core team.  
 
  
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Actual decision process: Decisions are made as "informed consent" as described
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The core team and the non-public mailing list gnucash-core, as of November 2016, has 9 (nine) members.
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in sociocracy [3]. That is, one person proposes a decision ("let person X join
 
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the core team", or "pay the amount X to person Y for Z", or "authorize person
 
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X to do Y in the name of the project") and describes the proposal with
 
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sufficient information in a message to the gnucash-core mailing list. The
 
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proposal should be reasoned and argued toward the goals of the organization.
 
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During some period of time (defined below), the other core team members should
 
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comment on the proposal. Each core team member might speak up to express
 
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approval, or to express indifference, but must clearly speak up in case they
 
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have objections. Objections must be reasoned and argued and based on the
 
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ability of the objector to work productively toward the goals of the
 
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organization. As long as there are objections, the proposal is declined and
 
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the concerned core team members need to work together to clear out all
 
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paramount objections.
 
  
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Once a proposal without objections is worked out, and enough core team members
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== Decision Process ==
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have replied, and no further objections arrive within the defined period of  
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The process begins with a proposal, which may be offered by any core team member, posted to the gnucash-core mailing list. Proposals should describe what is to be done, who is to do it, any monetary expense required, and how the action furthers the goals of the organization.
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time [4], the proposal is approved.  
 
  
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On the other hand, if, after the requisite period not enough team-members have
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Proposals are accepted or rejected using the "Consent Decision Making" practice from the "Sociocracy" form of organization <ref>https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy#Consent_vs._consensus</ref><ref>http://www.reinventingorganizationswiki.com/Decision_Making (scroll down to the heading "Consent based decision making")</ref><ref>In German: http://intrinsify.me/Blog/items/verbunden-im-konsent-was-ist-soziokratie.html</ref>. Each core team member should consider the proposal on its merits and with respect to the project goals in the context of previous decisions and express either assent (support) or objections on the mailing list. The criterion for assent is that the proposal is "Good enough for now and safe enough to try" <ref name="sociocracy-circles">http://sociocracy30.org/the-details/circles-and-decision-making/</ref> and furthers the goals of the organization; team members who believe otherwise should raise an objection explaining the objection and if possible outlining improvements that might overcome it. Supporters and objectors should then negotiate changes to resolve the objections. In our variation of the Sociocracy process we additionally allow some members to express indifference and others to not participate; a proposal can be accepted if a certain number of core team members assent or express indifference and none object as detailed below. A certain amount of time that depends on the impact level is allowed to gather the requisite assents; the number of assents required also depends upon the impact level.
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expressed approval or indifference, the proposal is rejected. A proposal needs
 
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to receive some minimum number of feedback in order to get accepted (in
 
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addition to work out objection resolutions), otherwise it does automatically
 
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die. It will be the one of the major responsibilities of any core team member
 
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to give some feedback, even if only stating indifference. On the other hand,
 
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it means the decisions will indeed be thought about by the majority of the  
 
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core team.
 
  
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In sociocracy, the person stating a proposal is expected to work closely with
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It is incumbent upon proposers, supporters, and objectors to work closely together to resolve the objections. All participants should recognize and respect that everyone wants to find the best way to further the project's goals, but that it's seldom apparent what is the best way forward without discussion and experimentation. "Concerns are not objections and don't stop proposals from being agreed, but often contain wisdom and may be the basis of useful criteria for evaluating and refining the agreed action or policy after it's implemented." (paraphrased from <ref name="sociocracy-circles"/>).  
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those people who have objections in order to resolve them. A common question
 
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would be: "How should the proposal be changed so that your objection is
 
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resolved?" The responsibility to come to an agreeable proposal is still on the  
 
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original poster, who usually has a natural motivation to get the proposal
 
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approved. The good point is that the process shows which steps need to be
 
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taken so that objections are resolved: Not a vote counting, but instead
 
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concrete one-on-one discussions for resolving concrete objection reason.
 
  
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Waiting period for "High impact" decisions: For high impact decisions, at
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=== Decision Thresholds ===
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least 75% of the core team need to give feedback. The period of time to wait
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* High-impact decisions require that 75% of the core team assent or express indifference and that no-one raises new objections within 3 weeks of the proposal or the last objection being resolved.  
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for no further objections is 3 weeks, or alternatively feedback from 100% of
 
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the core team.  
 
  
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"Low impact" decisions: For low impact decisions, at least 50% of the core  
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* Low-impact decisions require that 50% of the core team assents or expresses indifference and that no-one raises new objections within 10 days of the proposal or the last objection being resolved.
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team need to give feedback. The period of time to wait for no further
 
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objections is 10 days.
 
  
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(Note: As described in sociocracy [3], the process does not require a majority
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If 100% of the team assents or expresses indifference the decision is confirmed without the need to complete the waiting period for new objections.
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of votes here, but only a high enough feedback quota plus zero objections.
 
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Hence, as long as anyone has an reasoned objection, the decision is blocked
 
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and declined, but if the feedback varies only between indifference and
 
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agreement, the decision is agreed upon. This is one of the interesting
 
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peculiarities of the "informed consent" process in sociocracy. Nevertheless we
 
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must ensure there is enough feedback since we're only communicating by e-
 
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mail.)
 
  
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Thanks for reading! I'll write about the proposed next steps to make an
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== References ==
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initial agreement on this process in another message.
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<references />
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[1] http://www.gnucash.org
 
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[2] The threshold amount is meant as follows: Does the decision concern one or
 
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more payments totaling to this amount of money in the near future, e.g., as a
 
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single payment or as multiple payments over the next, say, 12 months.
 
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[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy
 
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[4] If a proposal received some objections, and the proposal is changed to
 
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clear out the objection, the waiting time counter is started from zero again
 
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once the changed proposal is sent to gnucash-core.
 

Latest revision as of 21:46, 25 November 2016

This is the light-weight decision process used for project-related decisions in the gnucash project. The GnuCash Core Team agreed on this process in March 2016.

Mission Statement

The GnuCash core team will work to further the goal of the GnuCash project [1]: To provide free personal and small-business financial- accounting software, designed to be easy to use, yet powerful and flexible.

Types of Decisions

Two types of decisions are concerned in this process: We distinguish "high impact" decisions and "low impact" decisions.

  • The "high impact" decisions include authorization to spend large amounts of money (>=$1000 [2]), as well as partnerships, such as joining software conservancy, and also policy changes, or the delegation of decision tasks to particular individuals in order to have them act in the name of the project.
  • The "low impact" decisions include adding new members to the "core team" (explained below), or authorizations for smaller amounts of money (<$1000), or other decisions on which the project can change its mind easily with almost no losses.

Core Team Membership

Decisions are made according to the following process by a "Core Team" of people who have made significant contributions to the GnuCash project as developers, documenters, administrators, by offering user support, or in other ways. Core team members are expected to participate in decisions at least to the point of registering agreement or disagreement with every proposal. Core team members are subscribed to the non-public gnucash-core@gnucash.org mailing list and are expected to monitor that list regularly. Contributors may join the core team either by requesting to or by being nominated by a current core team member and being approved by the "low impact" decision process. Core team members may resign at any time, and members who have not exercised their decision making responsibilities for more than 1 year may be asked to resign by any other core team member.

The core team and the non-public mailing list gnucash-core, as of November 2016, has 9 (nine) members.

Decision Process

The process begins with a proposal, which may be offered by any core team member, posted to the gnucash-core mailing list. Proposals should describe what is to be done, who is to do it, any monetary expense required, and how the action furthers the goals of the organization.

Proposals are accepted or rejected using the "Consent Decision Making" practice from the "Sociocracy" form of organization [3][4][5]. Each core team member should consider the proposal on its merits and with respect to the project goals in the context of previous decisions and express either assent (support) or objections on the mailing list. The criterion for assent is that the proposal is "Good enough for now and safe enough to try" [6] and furthers the goals of the organization; team members who believe otherwise should raise an objection explaining the objection and if possible outlining improvements that might overcome it. Supporters and objectors should then negotiate changes to resolve the objections. In our variation of the Sociocracy process we additionally allow some members to express indifference and others to not participate; a proposal can be accepted if a certain number of core team members assent or express indifference and none object as detailed below. A certain amount of time that depends on the impact level is allowed to gather the requisite assents; the number of assents required also depends upon the impact level.

It is incumbent upon proposers, supporters, and objectors to work closely together to resolve the objections. All participants should recognize and respect that everyone wants to find the best way to further the project's goals, but that it's seldom apparent what is the best way forward without discussion and experimentation. "Concerns are not objections and don't stop proposals from being agreed, but often contain wisdom and may be the basis of useful criteria for evaluating and refining the agreed action or policy after it's implemented." (paraphrased from [6]).

Decision Thresholds

  • High-impact decisions require that 75% of the core team assent or express indifference and that no-one raises new objections within 3 weeks of the proposal or the last objection being resolved.
  • Low-impact decisions require that 50% of the core team assents or expresses indifference and that no-one raises new objections within 10 days of the proposal or the last objection being resolved.

If 100% of the team assents or expresses indifference the decision is confirmed without the need to complete the waiting period for new objections.

References

  1. ↑ http://www.gnucash.org
  2. ↑ The threshold amount is meant as follows: Does the decision concern one or more payments totaling to this amount of money in the near future, e.g., as a single payment or as multiple payments over the next, say, 12 months.
  3. ↑ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sociocracy#Consent_vs._consensus
  4. ↑ http://www.reinventingorganizationswiki.com/Decision_Making (scroll down to the heading "Consent based decision making")
  5. ↑ In German: http://intrinsify.me/Blog/items/verbunden-im-konsent-was-ist-soziokratie.html
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 http://sociocracy30.org/the-details/circles-and-decision-making/
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