[hackerspaces] Dealing with micromanagement of hackers

[nog3]

Provided you've presented options and costing for discussion to the members
well ahead of a meeting I don't think it's unreasonable to expect them to
either present another option (with costings/pros and cons) or deal with it
and vote.

Committees to investigate options for everything is overkill, I agree.
Committees and task-forces to implement projects are totally fine.


On Thu, Feb 27, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Torrie Fischer <tdfischer at hackerbots.net>wrote:

> On Wednesday, February 26, 2014 13:08:08 Bert Hartmann wrote:
> > Hey Torrie,
> >
> > I don't know anything about your space, so this is all pure speculation
> on
> > my part, but if you don't have enough consensus to pass a budget, perhaps
> > you do need to open up the discussion to more people until they're
> > comfortable with the result? If you do have consensus, then it shouldn't
> be
> > an issue, and just approve the budget and move forward.
>
> The budget isn't part of the issue. The issue is that the member is
> wanting to
> continuously form committees to evaluate every significant piece of our
> infrastructure budget. An overall budget committee is good, but not a
> budget
> committee, external hosted infrastructure committee, IT committee,
> floorplan
> committee, kitchen building committee, business development committee,
> outreach committee, and most other ideas.
>
> We've got 20 members. Its a bit overkill and micromanagement.
>
> >
> > I know in New Jersey the law requires our non-profit to have an annual
> > meeting with all the members about this time of year, where we
> > traditionally pass a budget for the year, among other things. Perhaps a
> > similar type of meeting for your group is healthy, so that no matter what
> > process develops the budget (1 man and a spreadsheet or 20 people in 20
> > meetings) there's a hard and fast deadline everyone's working towards so
> it
> > doesn't get out of control and you end up with a workable result to
> present
> > the rest of the group (who will presumably keep on hacking despite it).
> >
> > Incidentally, to answer your last question: I've seen the role of the
> board
> > as handling all the bureaucratic stuff (rent, government filings,
> cleaning
> > the bathroom, budget negotiations) so that the hacking may go on
> unimpeded
> > for everyone else. Some of it's unavoidable, the trick is just to
> minimize
> > the impact to the organization at large and the members in specific.
> >
> > my 2 cents,
> > Bert
> >
> >
> > On Wed, Feb 26, 2014 at 11:08 AM, Torrie Fischer
> >
> > <tdfischer at hackerbots.net>wrote:
> > > Hi, discuss@!
> > >
> > > Lately at my hackerspace, we've had a member who is very interested in
> > > micromanaging the space. I'm currently both treasurer and AWS sysadmin
> for
> > > synhak.org, where I proposed a budget to use some grant money we
> received
> > > to
> > > secure 3 year funding of our infrastructure.
> > >
> > > Time and time again, this member in question wants to form a committee
> or
> > > some
> > > equally stifling bureaucratic structure to analyze any change to the
> space
> > > under the guise of "investigating all the options".
> > >
> > > Micromanagement like this is totally against our culture, but it seems
> > > that
> > > there are one or two others who go along with it because it "makes
> sense".
> > >
> > > Whats the best way to kill bureaucratic micromanagement and protect the
> > > hacker
> > > ethos at a space?
> > > _______________________________________________
> > > Discuss mailing list
> > > Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
> > > http://lists.hackerspaces.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss
> _______________________________________________
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> Discuss at lists.hackerspaces.org
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>
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