Proposal to form a Governance Working Group

[dshaw]

Governance is a hard topic that requires research and iteration. It is political, people work, far from the technical work many of our collaborators are here for. The project has grown immensely over the last couple years and we are at an inflection point where we need to put in the time and effort to research solutions and bring a proposal before the TSC to be ratified.

At Collab Summit 2017, Sara Novotny shared how the Kubernetes project bootstrapped their governance process. One of the key details of that process was the Special Interest Group (SIG, analogous to our Working Groups) created by their Steering Committee, empowered and entrusted with creating the proposal. I think a similar process would benefit us at this time.

Proposed strategy:

• Invite a small team (3-5 people) who have the interests and skillset to represent us
  • Confirm that they have time
  • Ensure we have diverse representation amongst the individuals participating
  • Seek out advisors to support these efforts if there are capabilities and/or representation gaps
• Empower them to work on our behalf
• Align on the acceptance criteria up-front
• Set expectations for timeline and sharing progress

[dshaw]

@mhdawson This is the "tsc-agenda" item I suggested. Process feedback and guidance appreciated.

[mcollina]

I am 👍 to this proposal. I would like to be part of the effort, but I will be sporadically available between now and December, and I cannot guarantee consistent output.

[jasnell]

I'm +1 on this and would definitely be willing to participate in the effort.

[mhdawson]

+1 and I'm willing to participate.

[geek]

Great idea. We should place limits on the number of representatives who can participate from a single company. Otherwise we risk having a governance proposal that favors the dominant participants.

[MylesBorins]

I have very mixed feelings about this. I think having a temporary interest group to come up with some definitive governance suggestions is a positive thing to do, but I am concerned that a working group could have the affect of removing governance responsibilities from the TSC.

At Node Interactive we discussed putting together more specific guidelines around the expectations of a member of the TSC, and involvement in governance is one of those expectations.

I have been advocating for finding ways to further empower our collaborators to have more control over the technical management of the project, if we are able to be successful in this there should not be a need for individuals to be on the TSC for purely technical reasons.

[dshaw]

In the Kubernetes case, they chose to create a group that terminated its mandate at the completion of the initial governance work. We can choose to go that route. We also may want to consider a broader charter for our needs.

I held a role in High School student government called "Parliamentarian". The responsibility of this role was to be well versed in the established procedures and facilitate debate and decision making.

Care taking and assessing governance process and procedures does not necessarily equate to the actions required by project leaders to represent, administer, and decide.

[rvagg]

Invite a small team (3-5 people) who have the interests and skillset to represent us

Who is "us" in here? What is the scope of "governance" in this context and how broad are the stakeholders that would make an "us"?

Ensure we have diverse representation amongst the individuals participating

Depending on scope, "3-5 people" might be a challenge to get proper representation.

Empower them to work on our behalf

I'd like clarity on what kind of empowerment is being proposed here. "empowered and entrusted with creating the proposal" sounds a bit fishy because nobody needs to be empowered or entrusted to make proposals, if you have a proposal then bring it! This seems like a pre-blessing on whatever they produce and I'd like to see clarity that it's not. Whatever the results of such a process it it's going to need broad buy-in to avoid further division.

[dshaw]

@rvagg The need for broad buy-in to the outcome and the heavy investment of time and effort are exactly why I am recommending that the TSC put in some effort up front to establish a committee of folks who can research, iterate and present a proposal for ratification.

[sarahnovotny]

I am also happy to participate in whatever way is useful to node.js.

[Fishrock123]

In the Kubernetes case, they chose to create a group that terminated its mandate at the completion of the initial governance work. We can choose to go that route. We also may want to consider a broader charter for our needs.

Do keep in mind: we are already past initial governance work, by two years at that.

[MylesBorins]

I would like to propose that we plan for a co-located in person multi-day meeting to discuss governance goals and steps to get us towards.

Any member of the committee who is unable to attend a colocation in person could attend digitally

Current suggested locations are Google NYC + Google Munich. We could theoretically also do something at Google in SF / Mountain View to cover the west coast.