There’s a dense categorization contained in the “What does it do?” matrix in the center of that spreadsheet. I’d like to explode the categories here so that we can see them (and perhaps talk about them) more easily. I suspect this will be part of an ongoing conversation between Organization Support Circle and SoSo Helping Circle.
developing & approving proposals, large-group feedback: do we have any software support for these?
policy manual: adapting Discourse features
Meetings
meeting notes: Google Docs
scheduling, reminders, etc.: Google Calendar, YouCanBookMe, LettuceMeet, Doodle, WhenIsGood
team management (who is on what group): by “group”, do you mean circle? If so, does our (really my) Kumu workflow count for this?
task management/action items: how is this different from task management in the “Operations” category? If by this you mean the function of connecting action items with the flow of meetings and meeting minutes, we adapt an amalgam of Google Docs, email, and Asana features.
backlog (parking lot for future topics/tensions): I don’t think we have any particular software support for this.
Information flow
prioritization: how is this different from prioritization in the “Operations” category?
circle/role visualization: Kumu
tracking term ends: manually through backlog awareness
budgeting/budget allocation: Google Docs (sheets); is there also another more specialized piece of financial software that we’re using?
conversations (within circles): I’m going to interpret this as remote meeting space, thus Zoom.
conversations (between circles/members): your favorite (or what the situation calls for) from among email, Discourse, Slack, Asana task threads
Thanks!
And remember that when I made the list, I didn’t only have SoFA in mind but all sociocratic (client) organizations. This is not about SoFA but about improving how implementations run.
Agreed. Others will have other tools than asana (trello, airtable, …) but they’ll be similar.
That’s here because of Pol.is which I a yearning to use with a client because I think it has a place as input from large groups. But we don’t need that badly (yet).
Yes!
Yeah for the latter I was thinking more google groups also, for sharing permissions etc. Not all client organizations are as transparent/permissive as SoFA so it becomes an issue when circle membership is more fluid than their old way of working.
Yes. This is for task management within a circle. Could be different from task management across circles.
Also how circle leaders can see who has too many tasks they’re not doing. In Asana, one would have to do some clicking around and might not have all permissions to understand everyone’s workload in other circles. So we’re saying leaders hold role accountable in their circles but how can they keep track of who has done what?
Yeah and I’m very happy with our solution. Backlogs are often the first thing I implement to support meetings, and if their meetings notes system isn’t allowing an integration of backlog, then they need a separate solution like trello.
Also, there’s a difference between having a task/aim and the prioritization between tasks and strategies within an aim. Sociocracy doesn’t pay much attention to that but I think it’s a limitation. An organic way to bring back prioritization into sociocracy is by providing information so people/circles can make a judgment call themselves. But that information needs to be more accessible (open and curated) than what most orgs have.
In other words, what this is playing with is, do people have enough information about what’s going on re budget/other tasks/strategic directions to make prioritization decisions? The answer is almost always no.