Working group: Decision making

A couple of years ago we felt that we didn't have a good way of working toghether in meetings. A project was started where a group of people met on a regular basis to eventually come up with the current meeting guigelines that are used in the labs. ATM I feel there is a problem with making decissions within the ppbe. For that reason I'd like to see if we can get a similar thing going. The aim would be to have a way (or ways) to make clear decissions for ppbe.
Currently I know of three 'official' ways to make decisions within ppbe:
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Proposals can be done at general assemblies (GA's) and voted upon
Historically we seen that this can lead to frustration and friction as it brings an artificial deadline with no real way to resolve issues
They should be done on a yearly basis, but from memory I would say that the last one was three years ago. We didn't even had one for the last elections while we're supposed to have one then as well
Even if we'd use GA's to make decissions, it's a lot of work to prepare which means that we have a very slow process
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Decissions can be taken by the coreteam
The coreteam were a group of people voted by other pirats. This brought a heirarchical structure and all the problems that come with it.
We haven't had a coreteam since the elections of 2014 or so. We definitly didn't have one in 2016 or later, nor do I think people really want to bring that back
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There's the three-pirate-rule that sais that you can start a crew or project if you have at least three pirates supporting you
Personally I don't think it's always clear in what cases the three-pirate rule does and does not apply
It should be obvious that these are seriously lacking.
There has been other ways of making decissions recently:
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Decentralise decissions. What can be done on a crew-level doesn't need conformation from the ppbe level
I think this is a powerfull idea. It's also how we handled last elections.
Sometimes you can't really bring it down to the crews in which case this doesn't work any more
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Find consensus on both Loomio and in the labs.
This was an experiment we wanted to try for money-decissions.
This implies having to wait for a lab. Maybe some decissions shouldn't need this red tape.
The labs can only do so much, so if a proposal hasn't come to a subgroup, the decission is dead...
Labs are monthly at best. Not getting a decission from the lab means waiting at least another month.
I think it's clear that these are defenitly not bringing a full-stack solution either.
So my proposal is to make a working group, similar to how we had the internal democracy group
Does any one oppose this idea?
Who would like to join this group on a regular basis (meetings will always be open to everyone, but It needs some people that can commit to it).
Do you already have ideas or insights or already see cases where there are problems? Feel free to leave them in the comments
Résumé en français : Ilja constate que les décisions au niveau du PPBe se prennent difficilement. Il souhaite reproduire une expérience qui a fonctionné (un groupe de travail sur les guidelines internes d'un groupe) mais cette fois-ci sur le thème de la prise de décision collective. Qqn s'y oppose ? Qui souhaite rejoindre le groupe de travail de façon régulière? (il sera toujours ouvert évidemment mais il faut des personnes pour le porter). Avez-vous déjà des suggestions/idées/cas concrets?
Wikipage of the project : https://wiki.pirateparty.be/Decision-making_process

Renaud Van Eeckhout Mon 2 Dec 2019 1:14PM
I would like to help, be part of the regular members of that workgroup.
Some random thoughts for now :
I think it would be a good idea to have the objective to improve what we currently have ; not imagining an ideal situation that would probably not work as planned anyway 😛 => otherwise we might "erase" what is now working for something unknown
in the same vein : I think we should try to find something simple that people can easily understand and apply. If it's complicated, either nobody will do it, or it would require a huge amount of effort to "update" the new members all the time
when you mention decentralization, I think that every workgroup is a decentralized place of decision, not just the crews. IT-squad, crews, Internal Democracy group, etc...
all the workgroups that aim to implicate ppbe should work with transparency and openness (by respect and to give everyone as much information as possible, and the possibility to participate)
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I don't think it's possible to have a "one set of rules for all the decisions", because decisions can have so many different shapes, some are urgent, some not, some require a huge adherence of members, some just require the adherence of those who participated...

sdm94 Mon 2 Dec 2019 7:50PM
Vous devriez regarder du coté du PP FR avec leur assemblée permanente où ils votent tous les mois sur congressus
tout est décrit dans les statuts : https://wiki.partipirate.org/Statuts
complété par le règlement intérieur : https://wiki.partipirate.org/R%C3%A8glement_int%C3%A9rieur
et pour exemple les votes de l'AP de novembre sur congressus c'est là : https://congressus.partipirate.org/meeting.php?id=571

Ilja Sun 26 Jan 2020 1:30PM
Alright, we had kind of a 'kick-off' in the last lab (sa 25/01/2020). the notes can be found on the wiki at https://wiki.pirateparty.be/Pirate_Lab/Meeting/25_01_2020#Decision-making
We started with a mindmap, a digitalised version can be found at https://wiki.pirateparty.be/File:Decision-mindmap-digital.png
If you have feedback on the mindmap (or feedback in general) please provide it!
One thing I noticed is that we started by saying it should be KISS (Keep It Simple [CENSORED]), but it wasn't added to the mindmap (which it probably should).
We also didn't set a date-time and place for a next meeting. February will be to crowded for me already, so let's decide a date on the next lab. I think for place the same bar as we did for the meeting subgroup would be a good place. (l'Esperance – Rue du Finistère 1-3
1000 Brussels)
We should also think about updating the wikipage https://wiki.pirateparty.be/Internal_Democracy/ because decision making fits under this.
Renaud Van Eeckhout · Mon 2 Dec 2019 12:59PM
Résumé en français : Ilja constate que les décisions au niveau du PPBe se prennent difficilement. Il souhaite reproduire une expérience qui a fonctionné (un groupe de travail sur les guidelines internes d'un groupe) mais cette fois-ci sur le thème de la prise de décision collective. Qqn s'y oppose ? Qui souhaite rejoindre le groupe de travail de façon régulière? (il sera toujours ouvert évidemment mais il faut des personnes pour le porter). Avez-vous déjà des suggestions/idées/cas concrets?