Dear Ouisharers,

We had on the 4th of February our final call on the “Governance process work”.

To check the history of this process please check the different loomio threads :

• launch of the process
• some news about the governance & budget
• about budget allocation
• Last call

Through something like 8 or 10 HO meetings and work, what this team produced is :

• some document that links to all that was already on that question within OuiShare
• some more documents with links to source of inspiration regarding governance
• reflexion and decisions towards budget allocation for this period
• an interview process, that we interrupted
• learnings on the process

Don’t hesitate to browse our trello to check this out.

We decided on that call to close the process we started in september

for 2 main reasons :

• the methodology was not adapted to the need (and a team not agile enough in its way of working)
• a lack of involvement on that question (too small a team for too big a question)

We used agile methodology to formalize our learnings through this process. You can check it all in our notes.

The main take aways would be the following (they are of course linked to OuiShare context & culture, it may be different in a different organisation) :

• Transformation work must have a clear link to the day-to-day work of those involved, otherwise it loses relevance
• Don’t start transformation work without representants of all stakeholders in the group; people who are directly, operationally concerned need to be in the reflexion from the start, or it has little likelihood to success. If these stakeholders don't join, think about why.
• Self-organized, organic way of work with no clarification of roles may work very well in a highly committed team that works together day-to-day and thus has self interest at stake in the process. In our distributed team working on that kind of governance question, this did not work that well. Fixing (and sticking to) a regular meeting for doing agile retrospection may haved help voice some tensions or questions, to be able to adjust or change the process on the way. Being able to recognize if a process is not working to be able to adapt is something we need to get better at.
• Don’t start a long process & methodology on a question where there are some burning issues; or find a way to work on both day-to-day need and long terme reflexion without disconnecting them

Closing this process came along with the following decisions

Regarding budget allocation : a bucket of 2700 euros had been saved for that process & other governance tasks. It has been collectively decided as followed :
* for leading the process, facilitating it and documenting : 800 euros ( 600€ Maud and 200€ Myriam)
* extra support for the tight summit budget this year (because no sponsor) : up to 1000 €
* support on updating the connector process/ access to information: 150 € (Fran)
* additional work on the budget (splitting the budget between local & national) : 350 € (Fran)
* 400 € left that we give back to the global OuiShare pot

Next steps on governance : We invite people who are not coming to the summit to share their thoughts and feelings on loomio regarding this question of governance and global & local distribution of funds. We will discuss together at the summit how to work with more agility on governance, and what actions concerning Ouishare governance should be initiated.

Looking forward to hearing from you or talk to you at the summit about these questions!

Elena, Fran, Maud & Myriam