Choose a decision-making platform
Derek Eder
Public
Seen by 291
Currently, we make decisions at the Chi Hack Night Leadership Council in person by group consensus. These decisions are proposed, discussed and the decisions we've made recorded in a series of Google Docs.
This has worked pretty well over the last 2 years, but is limited in a few ways:
- Only the people who show up get to make the decisions. Because most of our regular members are either participating in or leading breakout groups, it's difficult to get them to attend.
- In-person meetings are only held once every 4 weeks, so decision-making is slow
Loomio (this website!) is a tool that can supplement our in-person meetings, and I think would help address these two issues.
A few things to discuss on this thread:
- What other organizational issues do we have?
- Are there other tools out there that can help us organize this leadership body?
Steve Ediger (ChiCommons) Tue 14 Jun 2016 3:51PM
We've just had Loomio up for less than a month. We now have a few discussions going and are learning how to use it together. It's probably time to encourage more people to use it.
Kristi Leach Tue 14 Jun 2016 11:06AM
Loomio has been alright. I don't make the Leadership Council meetings, and this lets me participate without having the discussion scroll away into oblivion.
I am curious whether integrating it with Slack would alleviate the burden of having yet another tool involved, another place to track content.
We might also want to update the proposals after they are discussed so it's clear what exactly is being voted on, once it's time to vote.
Eric Sherman Tue 14 Jun 2016 2:56PM
I'm not a huge fan of it as an interface so far, though I see what it's trying to accomplish. I'm skeptical that we will have wide scale adoption, especially because its another platform to sign in and register for.
If the goal is to more formally organize proposals and decision-making, I can see it doing that. If we're trying to be more broadly inclusive, I don't see this platform increasing the accessibility of our decision-making without greater adoption. Unless we can share proposals and have people vote on them by sharing a link without signing up? Voting on proposals/polls via text message is the best option I can think of off the top of my head that would be 'convenient' but also more broadly accessible.
Derek Eder Tue 14 Jun 2016 3:46PM
@stevenvance we're on a trial period with Loomio, so I haven't yet pushed for greater adoption. If we decide the tool is worth using, we will integrate it into our existing leadership council setup.
@ericsherman While there are things Loomio could do better, I like that it shifts our decision making into a more formal and asynchronous mode via voting on proposals. If that's a direction we want to continue to move in, we can explore more ways to get others to participate.
@kristileach the Slack integration with Loomio pushes new proposals & threads to slack, so I don't think it would replace people having to sign up for a Loomio account.
Derek Eder Tue 14 Jun 2016 3:53PM
Let's try making a decision on using Loomio! I'll start a proposal.
Poll Created Tue 14 Jun 2016 3:55PM
Use Loomio for decision making Closed Wed 15 Jun 2016 3:02AM
We are proceeding with using Loomio!
Next steps:
- Derek will sign up for a monthly price plan
- we will all spread the word about the platform and invite others to join
- we will continue to use Google Docs to record our agenda and meeting notes. larger decisions that require group input will be made on Loomio
- new proposals on Loomio will be given a deadline of 24 hours after the next breakout group
- Derek will look into setting up the Slack integration
We've been trying out Loomio (this website) for about a month now. To continue using it will cost us $19/month.
Should we use Loomio to discuss and make decisions for the Chi Hack Night Leadership Council?
Results
| Results | Option | % of points | Voters | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
|
|
Agree | 100.0% | 8 |
|
| Abstain | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Disagree | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Block | 0.0% | 0 | ||
| Undecided | 0% | 37 |
|
8 of 45 people have participated (17%)
Derek Eder
Tue 14 Jun 2016 3:57PM
Loomio will allow people who can't make our monthly leadership meetings to participate, and will drive a more transparent and formalized decision making process.
Steve Ediger (ChiCommons)
Tue 14 Jun 2016 4:06PM
See my post on using Loomio in conjunction with other toolsets.
Christopher Whitaker
Tue 14 Jun 2016 5:58PM
I like using Loomio. It's harder for me to be at all the in person meetings because of my need to catch the Metra and this also makes it a little easier to see why we said yes to things.
Steven Vance · Tue 14 Jun 2016 6:06AM
The other reason to extend time on this is to address the reason we are doing this, item 1: those who vote are those who show up. How much effort has been made, by everyone here, in Slack, and tonight at CHN, to invite people to Loomio?