Re-chartering the Fellowship-WG

[jacobian]

A major update to the scope of responsibilities for the Fellowship WG.

This is intended more as a starting point than a final version - it's written pretty authoritatively, but I fully expect this to evolve as we discuss with the board, fellows, and community.

Once the draft is complete, this change will require a board vote to approve (and some further action, see "initial membership").

[jacobian]

There were several points of discussion that came up for me as I drafted this. I'm sure there are other things too, but these are the points that I know we need to look at and make some decisions about:

Who manages the fellows?

I have this as someone on the committee designed by the committee (and approved by the board). Is this too much indirection? Should it be the Chair, or perhaps DSF Pres/VP? I feel strongly that this needs to be an individual, and that person needs to have management responsibilities, but far less strongly about who that person is.

Eventually, this probably should be a paid ED, if/when we get there 😄

Should there be a stipend for the manager role? Everyone?

Management responsibilities are non-trivial, probably on the order of at least 1-2h/wk, possibly more if things go pear-shaped, and always requiring some emotional energy. Should we consider a stipend for this role? It'd be a first for WG stuff, but not unprecedented (e.g. the Board Assistant), and feels fair.

Some very rough napkin math: 2h/wk at $80/h (roughly the Fellow rate) is $8k/yr. That's large enough to be meaningful to someone in the role, while small enough to be within the DSF's budget.

Thinking a bit further: as pictured in my first draft, this is a more important and involved WG than anything else we've done to date. Should everyone on this WG receive a stipend?

Management questions

Small question: is bi-annual performance reviews the right cadance?

Big question: this all ended up sounding way more formal and scary than I'd intended it, is there a way I can better signal that in the doc? I think it's super-important that we have some management here, so that Fellows have some support, and so we have mechanisms in place for worst-case-scenarios, but I fully expect that we'll be able to continue hiring kick-ass people and not have to worry about it. I want to send the message that we expect to solve 99.9% of management problems through good selection, and these mechanisms like the HR stuff and performance reviews are there for the 0.1%.

[jacobian]

Tagging some folks who I'd love to get a review from ....

@nessita @felixxm @timgraham @carltongibson @berkerpeksag - current and former fellows, would be THRILLED to hear your thoughts, particularly around the introduction of management duties. I feel strongly that we need something here, but not in way that makes the Fellow job harder or more boring or even a little bit like Office Space. So if this is feeling micomanage-y even a little bit please let me know.

@frankwiles @andrewgodwin [I don't know Brian's GH handle] - y'all are current committee members. This would represent a pretty large expansion of the role and responsibility, so I'm curious if it seems overwhelming. Y'all are by no means expected to continue if we do something like this and it does seem like more than you want to sign up for, so I'm asking more generally about whether it makes sense for someone, not specifically you.

@django/dsf-board and @django/steering-council as DSF/development leaders any thoughts you have please.

[This is not to discourage feedback from anyone else in the community, just want to light the bat signal for people who seem like they'd have the most direct interest or be most impacted.]

[carltongibson]

Thanks for this @jacobian.

One of the things that was nice about being a Fellow was the autonomy, and trust and responsibility that that implied. The Fellowship Committee (FC) set the agenda: you're responsible for this. Beyond that, you were free to use your judgement. If that went away, likely the role would suffer.

From time to time, I would reach out to the FC for comment or input, and that was good to have. I think a scheduled (six-monthly) checkin would have been of benefit. One on ones are good. I would suggest a group meeting with all active Fellows and the FC as well. (I think the latter might be more use TBH.)

Fellows do a weekly report on their work. I'm not sure they're more than glanced at. It would be a bit frustrating if the six-monthly checkin were a Performance Review™, since there's plenty of opportunity for the weekly reports to highlight any issues. (Any great negative at this point would prompt, But why did no-one say anything ≈months ago?... — likely I'm missing the point here.) So, I guess I'd argue for a bit more engagement with the weekly reports, so that a periodic checkin was at a higher level than performance.

I hope that's helpful. Generally 👍

I can't comment on the if there's a complaint type clauses. AFAICS they're essentially what's already the case (but IDK)

[frankwiles]

Personally, I'm definitely open to a bit more "management/mentorship/whatever-we-want-to-call-it". But I also strongly agree with @carltongibson that too much is going to be counterproductive.

I think something on the order of quarterly or every 6 months as an on the books meeting makes sense, but anything more frequent is probably more burden for both sides than is useful.

We're obviously available if the Fellows want to ask us anything, but this might encourage a bit more discussion if nothing else.

[andrewgodwin]

Funnily enough, after getting some fantastic feedback from @nessita on the fellowship committee, some very similar thoughts had been on my mind as well. I don't know if we need to do a full on performance review situation (I have enough of those to run per year!), but I do think a bit more structure would be good.

I'm very for giving the WG direct stated control of budget for travel/conferences; currently this is in a little bit of a grey area. I like the general direction of the "management" angle, but I would suggest that we go from two "performance reviews" a year to something that sounds more like "check-ins", and the stated goal is both for the WG to guide the fellows if they think their focus needs shifting, and for the fellows to feed back in terms of anything they'd like to improve the working environment. Honestly, a bit more like what I do with my reports in 1:1s but on a longer timescale.

(also, one nit - biannual is an ambiguous word, I'd love if we could just say "twice a year")

[timgraham]

It seems to me the current "coaching" structure is that the non-retiring fellow mentors the new one. I think that's a good system.

I don't have engineering management experience, so I guess I wouldn't qualify to be a manager based on the new criteria, but I think I would certainly qualify as a useful coach since I have done the fellow job. On the other hand, I wonder how effective a manager could be at coaching if they haven't done the job.

When I worked at a start-up, meetings with my manager tended to be about 2 minutes where he said, "Great job, keep it up!" From that perspective, I don't feel having a manager would have been useful for me as a Fellow -- and having one assigned part way through my duties definitely would have been a little discouraging (like, now you don't trust me to manage myself?). But I guess other fellows may be more enthusiastic about having some more structured guidance.

As Carlton said, having autonomy as a fellow is a great perk, and I felt like I could get a ton done without any "red tape."

[nessita]

Replying to @jacobian

Big question: this all ended up sounding way more formal and scary than I'd intended it, is there a way I can better signal that in the doc?

My first reaction when reading the proposal "wow this has many fancy words" so I would suggest to simplify the language where possible. I think doing that can lower the "formal" tone and make it sound less scary.

I think it's super-important that we have some management here, so that Fellows have some support

I fully agree with this. But, from the previous comments, I feel that we may need to be a bit more explicit about what kind of "management" is expected. I've had many managers during my professional career and they can make a huge difference in how an individual enjoys (or not) and evolves (or not) in the role.

A manager who attends 1-1s just for the sake of it, saying "Great job, keep it up!" without genuine engagement isn't helpful. Even if someone excels at work, they're still people with ups and downs. Good managers care about personal and work life, recognizing the connection. Great managers actively guide and encourage growth, understanding fulfilled individuals perform better than disengaged ones.

Replying to @carltongibson

One of the things that was nice about being a Fellow was the autonomy, and trust and responsibility that that implied. The Fellowship Committee (FC) set the agenda: you're responsible for this. Beyond that, you were free to use your judgement. If that went away, likely the role would suffer.

I totally agree about having freedom in the Fellow role -- it's what makes it enjoyable and honorable. But, I also feel like there's an assumption that fellows automatically know how to set priorities. Some guidance or support in that area could be useful to make sure the freedom doesn't become too much or slow down the role.

More generally, I believe that providing more concrete and explicit guidelines for the fellowship committee's tasks can help set expectations on both ends. Specifically:

1. I would greatly appreciate and benefit from regular 1-1 meetings every two weeks or once a month.
2. I support the idea of performance reviews, but as mentioned by Carlton, they should serve as a summary of the 1-1 discussions to avoid surprises and ensure transparency.
3. Having clear guidance on setting priorities would make me feel more secure, especially when faced with numerous tasks and limited resources and time. Input from a Fellow manager, when needed, would enhance clarity and effectiveness.

Thank you for working on this!

[carltongibson]

I would greatly appreciate and benefit from regular 1-1 meetings every two weeks or once a month.

That's much more often than I'd imagined from the original proposal. 🤔

I think (literally) the only people who have sufficient context into the project for that kind of resolution are the current (at that time) Fellows. One could talk through setting priorities with others, but they'd have to rely entirely on the information that the Fellow brought to the meeting: no-one else has the visibility into what's pressing. Given that, I'd think a meeting of both Fellows, plus maybe a third from the FC if that helps, would serve better than a 1-1 with a non-Fellow. (But, again, I might be missing part of what's desired here.)

...especially when faced with numerous tasks and limited resources and time.

I get this yes. There's effectively an unbounded amount of work that could be done. Much more than ever will be. So it's a question of controlling the flow, rather than damming it entirely. There is no end; it's entirely ongoing maintenance.

Beyond "Handle the security issues", and "Get the releases out", I'm not sure there's much to say about setting the priorities than "What do you think is most pressing now?". It's that visibility thing: unless you're actually busy Fellowing, how can you tell? I'm still watching the project but I (literally) have no idea now what's going on, except in the broadest strokes. 🤔

[thibaudcolas]

One big question – are we intending to have some of this new process in place in time for a new Fellow hire, or no?

Otherwise I’m happy to see more of this defined than it seems to have been in the past!

[jacobian]

I can't thank everyone enough for their comments and feedback. I'm making a round of edits accordingly.

In particular thanks for the nuanced feedback about autonomy and management. I think I didn't quite nail that: my intent is for the WG to be almost entirely the "support structure" kind of manager, providing any support the Fellows need but generally trusting them to do the needful. I do think that the freedom and autonomy to work on whatever they think is most important is one of the most compelling parts of the role, and I absolutely don't want to change that.

I do think there needs to be just enough of a backstop to provide some procedures if things go wrong. We super hope never to have to use it, and I think in general our best defense against problems is selecting good Fellows (which, can I say, we've freaking excelled at so far). But if something goes pear-shaped and we don't have procedures in place, past history tells me we'll probably mess it up. So we need just enough of a backstop to make sure we know what to do if something bad happens.

Anyway, v2 on its way shortly.

[jacobian]

One big question – are we intending to have some of this new process in place in time for a new Fellow hire, or no?

Realistically, no, since our new Fellow starts [well, it's not announced yet but soon], so we won't get there. That's fine, because then we get to get their input, as well.

[andrewgodwin]

I like the changes quite a bit; there's a few copyedits I might suggest, but I'll hold off on suggesting any of those until we're settled on the broad direction here!

[sarahboyce]

This looks really good! Thought I'd add a couple of thoughts 👍

[jacobian]

Quick note on where we are with this overall and what I'm picturing the next steps will be:

• finalize the draft, including identifying the Board Liaison
  • (note that we don't have to get this absolutely perfect, it's totally possible to change the charter over time. we just gotta get to "good enough")
• board votes on the new charter (we're hoping to do this at our next board meeting, in about a month, if not sooner)
• Board Liaison + Fellows + any other interested board members will lead a selection process for members (open call for volunteers, followed by a suggested set of initial members for Board approval)

[jacobian]

@andrewgodwin I'd love any thoughts/suggested edits you want to share!

[andrewgodwin]

I like where this has got to overall - it's definitely better with the manager responsibilities section being much less prescriptive and more "it should be supportive but decided by the fellows!".

Without going into copy-editing mode, the only other thing I might want to add is who makes the petition to increase (or decrease) the number of Fellows; obviously the Board has to approve it on a budgetary level, but it feels that it would align with the reporting piece to also have the WG say, for example, if they think another person part- or full-time would have a big improvement - along with inputs from the current Fellows on such a move.

[jacobian]

Thanks for the feedback @nessita @andrewgodwin @sarahboyce!

OK to me this feels Good Enough™ to move forward - that is: move towards a board vote, and start to select new members. Please speak up if anything glaring is missing, but do remember it's pretty easy to change these things over time.

[thibaudcolas]

As discussed in Slack, I’d prefer as little "TBD" as possible for a proposal to be voted on and approved. So in particular I think "Chair" and "Board liaison" should be filled in with someone’s name. Can be the same person. Can also have a note of "board liaison acting as chair until selection by new members".

---

As a possible gap in the charter, perhaps worth a note about how the working group is a replacement for the current Fellowship committee?

[jacobian]

@thibaudcolas see the changes I just made - does this address your concerns or did I miss anything?

[jacobian]

This was approved by the board today, with the addition of @glasnt as interim co-chair. I'll make updates and merge shortly 🎉