Team meetings

Note: The meeting formats and contacts on this page describe a previous team operating model. Adapt them to the needs of your own team and confirm any current arrangements with the relevant project lead.

RCM-only team meeting

A regular online meeting for the RCM team to share and plan work across the wider team.

Typical topics

• Problem-solving clinic, where community managers bring blockers for discussion.

• Community-management skills development from a team member or guest speaker.

• Project updates from two team members.

• Periodic all-team updates, mid-term reflections, and end-of-year reflections.

RCM and collaborators meeting

A regular online meeting that invited RCM-adjacent roles within the Turing.

Typical topics and formats

• Problem-solving clinic, where different members brought specific challenges they were facing and explored solutions as a team.

• Community-management skills development.

• Project updates from specific team members and quarterly all-team project updates.

• Regular ‘team days’ to discuss status and improvements for RCM support strategy and future plans for the team.

• Regular online Collaboration Cafe-style meetings.

  • Participants suggest topics for breakout rooms and then co-work within them.

  • Ideas for breakout-room topics can also come from the team issue trackers.

RCM team shared organisation responsibilities

A team member took responsibility for organising the team for a set period, including chairing RCM meetings. The responsibility rotated across the team.

These “chairs” were referred to as Goatherds. The idea of the name comes from a Terry Pratchet quote. Adopted at the TPS and continued for the RCM team, we encouraged these daily organisation to be shared than to be driven by single person.

For sheep are stupid, and have to be driven. But goats are intelligent, and need to be led.” ― Terry Pratchett, Small Gods

Main responsibilities

This is your week to engage the RCM team on the topic of your interest. Ask questions, share resources and make sure that everyone is prepared for the team meeting.

• Friday: Review the goatherder schedule for the assigned meeting type (“TPS CM meeting” or “Theme”).

• Friday: Personally check in with the speakers and make sure they know what they will be presenting next wednesday.

• Monday: Send a summary of the meeting agenda on slack to #tps-rcms-internal (TPS CM meeting) or #tps-rcms-and-collabs (Theme Disucssussion). Flag any actions, e.g. to add agenda items or add project updates share out.

  • Include a link to the hackmd for that week.

• Monday (co-working): Chair the co-working call

  • Ask what people want to work on (folks will often have discussed between them in advance and have suggestions, or they will come to the call ready to contribute anywhere)

  • Make zoom breakout rooms as required

  • ANY OTHER CHAIRS ACTIONS? Pomodoro? Calling back to main room?

  • If “Theme Discussion” meeting there will be a space for project updates. Read these out during the meeting, and invite short questions to the project owner. Allow a maximum of 20 minutes for project updates, leaving 40 minutes for the main presentation/discussion.

• Wednesday (team meeting): Chair the team meeting call and ensure notes are taken.

  • If “Theme Discussion” meeting there will be a space for project updates. Read these out during the meeting, and invite short questions to the project owner. Allow a maximum of 20 minutes for project updates, leaving 40 minutes for the main presentation/discussion.

  • Chair the themed discussion, invite the speaker to talk, or ask team what they want to discuss if open agenda/clinic

  • Check notes are being taken.

  • Make zoom breakout rooms as required

  • ANY OTHER CHAIRS ACTIONS? Pomodoro? Calling back to main room?

• Thursday: Push / copy call notes hackmd to project resources

  • Modify syntax of “info” section to quote block

  • Redact confidential or identifiable informaton whch was not offered directly by the person identified.

  • Redact zoom links and meeting id etc.

  • Redact links to list-of-links and goatherd schedule at the bottom (redacted as this links to previous meeting notes which have not been reviewed for confidentiality)

  • Tag previous and next weeks goatherd for PR review

• Thursday or after PR merged: Share link to notes on the appropriate slack channel for the meeting. Flag any actions/issues.

• Thursday: Let the next goatherder know that you are passing the responsibility to them - tag them on slack or connect during co-working.

Team calendar

There was a community-manager team account with a mailing list. Contact the current project lead for access to any active calendar or mailing list; the contact and access process documented here may no longer apply.