2. Background
Nasscom product forum has been a great
success in the last two years, primarily because
of few individuals and a set of dedicated
volunteers
However the goals and aspirations are bigger so
need to institutionalize the
systems/processes/models that have worked in
the past. This would help the Nasscom product
forum to scale efficiently and reduce the risks.
It has also been observed that sometime the
tasks are not completed in spite of capable
3. Fundamental premise
The basic idea of volunteer driven organization
is already proven in the Nasscom product
forum.
Build a tangible self sustaining open volunteer
based system that can run on the models of
open source / wiki system.
System will also will facilitate better task/project
management.
Build transparency in the system for the progress
and activities and the people associated with the
task.
4. Volunteer driven organization
Task driven
Process/workflo
ws
hierarchy
Basic Principles: 3rd Generation Organization – a Volunteer
organization. The first generation organizations were defined by
hierarchy. Later, organizations used workflows and processes to
structure themselves. Now with the advent of tacit knowledge
work, an organization can be defined around challenges. This is the
third-generation of the organization and has been central to the
success of open source software and Wikipedia . We are using this
organizational model to create a powerful volunteer team at
NASSCOM.
5. Volunteer motivators/de-
motivators
NASSCOM Product Evangelists
What motivates ?
True empathy for spreading the product eco system.
Meeting like minded people ?
Influencing the establishment so that it helps
everyone.
Networking/Meeting influential people ?
Many being product entrepreneurs recognize the need
and understand the pain points.
Peer recognition
What demotivates ?
Lack of clarity/information
Denial of due credit
6. Volunteer/Task organization
Structure
Overall
Black Shirts challenge/work
Tasks will have a Specific Task 2
Specific task 1
primary volunteer (say conclave) (say PR
(Grey shirt) efforts)
Sub tasks – set of Session on
Session on
volunteers Session on Internet
financial
innovation product eco
sectors
(white shirts) system
Currently there are about 20 grey/black shirts who can take the lead
7. Parameters of the System
System that can be used to
measure, track the tasks and in
turn effectiveness of the Rating
volunteer.
Visible tasks and Visibility for the
Volunteer. (sort of mind map)
Can run off of the emerge Primary
State of
platform !
Tractability of the tasks.
Easy creation of the tasks for the
/Volunte
ers Task completion
black shirts.
Rate volunteers(tasks) on their
work.
N
Provide more seriousness about
the tasks at hand. Schedul
Key
outputs e/Timefr
ame
* Initially this could be an excel sheet
with details filled and shared on
Google doc.
8. Flow of events
Volunteer attaches himself Task closure (Successfully
Create volunteer hierarchy to the task (moderation completed, partially
may be required) done, no longer relevant
Status updates as the task
Task rating/points
Create overall task progresses. (Task owner
declaration (for rewards
(recurring activity) or grey shirts should be
and future task allocation)
able to trigger)
The task progress should
also have space for filling
Volunteer assigned back
Create subtasks if any in notes, thanking any
to the pool.
help or credit, issues, flags
etc.
10. Implementation
Volunteer
Guideline
s
Nasscom
Volunteer
Co-ordination
Collaborati
System
on/Voluntee
r
manageme
nt Platform
11. Implementation
Open source systems are available. (The
appendices has the information)
An Indian product startup also is available for
collaboration management.
Google tools for collaboration management
can also be used if one wants to keep things
simple.
Ning based systems ? (closed social
networking)
12. Schedule/Budget
A dedicated volunteer for 2 months to trial and
set up the system.
Someone who understands web based
collaboration platforms.
Good with open source implementations
Also need to check if a Indian product company
can do pro-bono.
Some one to manage on the ongoing basis
(Preferably the same one who set up)
13. Open issues !
How do we take the risk out ?
What is the measure of effectiveness of the
Volunteer ?
How do you know the success can be
repeated.
Implementation details; the system needs to
run off of the emerge platform.
Rewards need to be approved by larger
nasscom bodies.
15. List of Volunteer management
software
http://www.coyotecommunications.com/tech/volmanage.html
http://sourceforge.net/projects/vmoss/
http://sourceforge.net/search/?q=volunteer
http://sourceforge.net/search/?q=volunteer
16. List of collaborative software
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collaborative_softwa
re
Some collaboration software allows users to vote, rate, and rank choices, often for the purpose of extracting the
collective intelligence of the participants. The votes, ratings, and rankings can be used in various ways such as:
Producing an average rating, such as 4 out of 5 stars.
Calculating a popularity ranking, such as a "top 10" list.
Guiding the creation and organization of documents, such as in Wikipedia where voting helps to guide the
creation of new pages.
Making a recommendation that may assist in making a decision.
In the case of decision making, Condorcet voting can combine multiple perspectives in a way that reduces
intransitivity. Additional uses of collaborative voting, such as voting to determine the sequence of sections in a
Wikipedia article, remain unexplored. It's worth noting that no matter what voting method is implemented, Arrow's
Impossibility Theorem guarantees that an ideal voting system can never be attained if there are three or more
alternatives that are voted upon.
In addition to allowing participants to rank pre-existing choices, some collaboration software allows participants to
add new choices to the list of choices being ranked.[16]
Voting in collaboration software is related to recommendation systems that generate appreciated
recommendations based on ratings or rankings collected from many people.
17. Collabtive features
Main features (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collabtive)
to-do lists
milestones
messaging / instant messaging
calendaring
file management
role-based user permissions
timetracking
tagging
search
reporting (Excel, PDF)
exporting (ZIP, XML, RSS, iCal, vCard)
importing from Basecamp XML
multi-language interface
18. Other Volunteer models.
Wiki Model
(http://wiki.volunteermanagers.org.uk/index.ph
p?title=Main_Page)
Open source software
Here are some basic principles that apply to the organization that we are trying to create: The volunteer will select the “challenge”, rather than be given the “task”. Ever since the inception of the modern firm, people were given tasks to do in a prescriptive, deterministic manner. Initially this made sense, since firms were built on industrial-revolution models, and linear workflow was the norm. Now that the environment has changed completely and talent is at a premium, there's no point in hiring smart people and then telling them what to do. It makes more sense to expose knowledge workers to problem domains and letting them find a way to address the challenges. We are leveraging this concept to create a self-managing open-source volunteer organization.Each challenge will have a clear set of benefiting stakeholders, “green/clean” goals and “game controls”. The expectation is that, as with gaming, addressing easy challenges will motivate the “gamer” to go after the more difficult ones. Each challenge will have its own “game controls”, i.e. how one gets things done in the context of that particular challenge. Across challenges, the “game mechanics” will be similar facilitating the movement from one challenge to another. The Black Shirts will ensure that these game controls and game mechanics get defined.Over time team-based volunteering will become the norm, not the exception. Easier challenges will be individual challenges. Tougher challenges will require teamwork. The Black Shirts will have to "train" the organization by gradually changing the mix in favor of team challenges.Meetings will be limited and functional. They will be about building context and tracking results. Between meetings, effective program management will be essential to achieving results. (Our NPC experience has helped crystallize the role that the Program Manager should play). The Black Shirts will not let the size of the organization (in terms of challenges) outgrow the number of available Program Managers.Radically different tools will be deployed. Since working on the challenges is time-shiftable and place-shiftable, a new set of tools will be needed. We have already learnt the benefits of collaboration tools like GoogleDocs. Additionally, we shall use a challenge tracker to design and manage the organization.
What works from process perspective.Process learning !
