[Osmf-talk] [OSM-talk] OSMF organizational change: Management Team

[Serge Wroclawski]

On Thu, Aug 11, 2011 at 11:25:45PM +0200, Henk Hoff wrote:
> Thanks for you comments.
> 
> I agree with you to keep the structure as simple as possible.
> 
> But ... the structure we had, was not working effectively. We made some
> changes in the way the board was functioning, but that didn't help. It was
> time to grab the bull by the horns and have the daily trouble-shooting
> issues (which was taking up most of the time of the board) delegated to the
> collective working groups. The Management Team.

> Currently the Working Groups already have a huge mandate.

> The Management Team is mostly taking up tasks that was with the
> board. This does mean that the board itself needs to focus on a more
> abstract level of decision making and that the Management Team doesn't need
> approval of the board for every single decision.

Henk,

I think that the recognition by the board that the status quo is not creating the kind of change OSM needs is a 
positive step forward.

At the same time, I wonder about this new change and about its organizational effect.

The problem in my view is one of focus and budget.

The teams don't have a single unifying vision that they're working toward, and they don't know what resources are 
available to them in order to accomplish their tasks.

THe result is that the WGs may come to a consensus but that every decision must be approved by the board.

It would seem that a solution to this would be to either give WGs budgets with which to work under or to have an 
Executive Director, whose full time job it is to manage the daily operations of the organization and who has 
authorization to allow for actions to be taken and the resources to do so if necessary.

Can you explain to me how adding an additional layer of indirection between the WGs and the board will accomplish the 
task of streamlining actions and make OSMF more agile and able to act, either reactively or propactively?

- Serge