VEMS Executives are persons who
- measure the amount of work in that department: define values that make the base for CompenSation/Distribution
- coordinate the work in "departments" so it moves to the right direction, in harmony with the other departments
- report about things that are delayed and propose suggestions
- Besides getting shares for the work he (she) actually does, gets 10% of the dividends of that department (during time of service). I was thinking between 5..12% and discussed with some guys. 10% seems to be the best compromise.
Requirements for executives
- believe that with some organized work the hardware sales can be boosted and make sure that millions of dollars are soon available for CompenSation/Distribution (to be shared among departments)
- (and) accept the above
Executives are NOT (necessarily)
- project managers. But the department executive are "responsible" that necessary projects exist and are moving forward, so executives should promote project managers.
- doing the work themselves. They can, if they like, but they must make it possible for others to join in. This is very important! The tool for this is to make sure (=make someone maintain) there is always a pool of small (10...80 minuutes jobs) "jobshop" items that people can choose from.
Why we need department executives
We are serious about MakeMoney and CompenSation/Distribution but one person cannot and should not try to coordinate and judge everything because that cannot work for a team as big and powerful as VEMS
Although VEMS produces mostly open source software and hardware with open source methods and distributed style, some organization is needed to get the best out of the work that we already put in it and we're putting into VEMS.
For the same amount of work, some organization makes the difference between
- millions of dollars available for CompenSation/Distribution and much useful software and HW can be contributed to the society
- or thousands of dollars available for CompenSation/Distribution and hard to use software/HW is contributed to the society
We must move from the second to the first. It might happen by itself slowly, but if we want results within months / years, we must act.
Departments
Departments are resposible to make:
- code
- or other design (eg. eagle HW design)
- AND documentation where necessary
- often more necessary during the design decisions, than at the the end:
- the endresult is usually self-documenting to a high degree
To achive these, there are some unavoidable tasks:
- make a plans
- milestones
- steps
- dates
- persons we will ask to contribute, executing steps in timely fashion
- document the planned stuff, design options early enough, so it can be
- discussed within the team (very important!!!)
- reviewed for suitability.
Notable exceptions are
- VemsExecutives/Manufacturing that delivers real devices (so any necessary code or other design are for internal use)
- and VemsExecutives/CaseDesign that helps VemsExecutives/Manufacturing with mechanical stuff
Needless to say
- documenting in ChatViaIrc worths no credit.
- In email it's 20% of the credit
- in wiki/SVN (usually the relevant development wiki) it's 70%
- in wiki/SVN + occasional report in email to the relevant list is 100%.
Not etched in stone forever
Anyone, please raise your voice if you strongly disagree with something. Better yet, act up, and there is great chance you'll be executive in a 3..4 months.
- If you feel like you'd like to do it, put yourself to the "candidate" section. Write how many hours a month you can very likely spend during next 3 months. 160 hrs/month means full-time, 16 hrs/month means 10%. This will be important (but not the only factor) when promoting department executives.
- You can move yourself from the "candidate" section to the "nocandidate" section, to prevent others proposing you as "candidate" (adding back :-) if you'd like someone else to coordinate the given department (or if some requirement is not met)
For every department, we'll need a vice executive too. It is important, so the vice executive knows about everything and can jump into action should it be needed because of illness or lack of time for a longer period, etc... Some of the 10% of department's dividends will go to the vice executive, depending on the amount of participation.
- VemsExecutives/Documentation
- VemsExecutives/Firmware
- VemsExecutives/TuningSoftware
- VemsExecutives/HardwareDesign (for boards)
- VemsExecutives/Connector do we need this separate, or merged with above? The connectors seem to be harder than they seem
- VemsExecutives/CaseDesign (for CNC-ing) and case manufacturing
- VemsExecutives/Manufacturing electronic hw. Also supply chain
- VemsExecutives/WebShop
- VemsExecutives/Ofbiz (computing support for other departments)
- VemsExecutives/Marketing
Note that there is no department for testing. Every department is responsible for producing tested "products" (let it be a tested ofbiz instance, or tested firmware, etc...). There are some areas, like
- firmware-tuningsoftware compatibility and
- firmware-documentation integrity
Some people like Jorgen, Marcell and Emil work in all departments. Thats good, since they can act as a "bridge" (can judge strategy while in infancy) and this helps when mapping workforce to departments. Naturally, people working in more than one department get their shares from each department, according to the administration of each department executive.
Naming
I was inconfident about the naming.
- maybe division would have been better instead of department
- maybe division manager instead of executive would have been better?