Open Stack

On 03/09/2016 11:36 AM, Doug Hellmann wrote:
> Excerpts from Colette Alexander's message of 2016-03-08 14:34:19 -0800:
>> On Tue, Mar 8, 2016 at 1:37 PM, Doug Hellmann <doug at doughellmann.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> As I understood it when this course was originally proposed, the
>>> idea was to have a few folks already in leadership positions go
>>> take the training and evaluate it. Then, assuming the evaluation
>>> was good, we would offer it to (or at least suggest it to) other
>>> members of the community like PTLs or folks interested in running
>>> for leadership positions of some sort (not that folks who aren't
>>> elected can't be leaders, but one step at a time).
>>>
>>> How did that evolve into most of the TC (and Board?) going? Did
>>> someone do that evaluation already?
>>>
>>
>> it only evolved into much of the TC going because more people than I
>> initially expected to based on previous conversations expressed interest in
>> being able to attend. The general cost of a single custom-session for a
>> group makes it possible to accommodate that larger group (so, having 10-20
>> people in an exclusive, not-public session, is within the bounds of
>> expected attendance).  No one from the board so far has said they'd be able
>> to attend, fwiw, and I've checked with a few of them privately to gauge
>> interest, which seems minimal there. I don't think the expectation that
>> this is an 'official' or 'required' training is suddenly there, though -
>> this will still be intended to be an evaluative session, just one that was
>> more conducive, timing-wise, to the schedules of people who expressed
>> interest in attending it.
> 
> My interest in attending is based solely on the number of other TC
> members going. If a majority go, I feel I need to attend to have a good
> common frame of reference for future discussions. If only one or two
> folks go and prepare some sort of evaluation, I can skip the trip and
> only attend a future course if the evaluators recommend it.
> 
>>> I've already expressed my skepticism of the idea of a business
>>> leadership class, and this specific class, being useful to us. I
>>> did so privately because I am willing to listen to the feedback
>>> from folks that do attend and I haven't really been involved in the
>>> planning aside from being asked to be part of the small group doing
>>> an initial evaluation.  But now if we're gearing up to send a large
>>> group to I feel it's necessary to say something publicly.
>>>
>>> Do we have a set of goals for the outcome of having folks take a
>>> "leadership" course? Do we have specific issues we would like to
>>> address through changes in leadership style? Does this course cover
>>> them?
>>>
>>
>> So I laid out some of the questions I think the community could benefit
>> from alignment on in the etherpad I started already[0], but one of the
>> things that really struck me when talking to various members of the TC and
>> the community at large about leadership was how vastly different everyone's
>> experience, opinions, and approaches were to the questions I asked (which
>> were variations of: "As an elected leader in OpenStack, what do you wish
>> you would've had as resources to help you adjust to a leadership position?"
>> and "What do you think leaders in OpenStack could benefit from, in terms of
>> skillsets that could be strengthened or added via any kind of training?")
>> At some points, I had people suggesting to me completely opposite
>> definitions for the 'problem' of leadership in OpenStack, suggesting that
>> certain skillsets that others wanted training for didn't matter at all, and
>> generally realized that maybe we all don't have a great shared definition
>> of what leadership skills matter here in the community. Having been
>> interacting with the community for a few years  now, I wasn't surprised by
>> the diversity of opinions, but I think it does mean that some alignment on
>> defining the problem would be worthwhile.
>>
>> Hence, the idea that perhaps a small group of existing leadership should
>> get together in a room and talk about how to define/agree on the problem
>> appropriately, first, before even beginning to think about having the
>> conversation to come up with solutions for it. So in many ways, the goals
>> or outcomes of this training would be to get more than a few people in
>> leadership positions within the community to gather around a shared
>> language and understanding of leadership in order to define problems
>> collectively and move forward with discussing solutions more broadly. That
>> could take so many possible forms, and be so many things, it's almost
>> impossible to sort through.
> 
> I agree we need to have the conversation and come to some common
> understanding. It's not clear that a pre-defined seminar like this
> is the best forum for that sort of discussion. Our values should
> drive the discussion, rather than those of someone from outside of
> our community.

I've participated in similar kinds of activities both at a previous
employer, and part of strategic planning for a non-profit. And in both
instances they were extremely useful.

The thing that is extremely important and valuable about them is a
trained facilitator that has a ton of experience with groups of many
different dynamics. And, more importantly, is outside of the group
dynamic. A good trainer/facilitator knows how to get groups to go to
uncomfortable places to let them challenge themselves, but can pull them
back from spiralling into unproductive places. That is much harder than
your realize. And having professional experience there is really important.

I'm quite looking forward to the event regardless of the mix of
individuals there. Having it be fully OpenStack folks instead of just
being mixed in with other people showing up there there I think would be
great.

I also think that while it's good to have a few skeptics in the mix, if
the bulk of people show up out obligation, it would definitely color the
experience for all. And seems like a less worth while adventure if that
was the case.

	-Sean

-- 
Sean Dague
http://dague.net