Yesterday in the bi-weekly meeting with the architects, Joannes and me understood that we again missed files that were send to us by the architects.
Personally i find this very frustrating. I don’t know where the problem exactly lies (architects not understanding how they should do it, or technical problems), but as this now has happened already 3 or 4 times, i would like to propose to
have only one way of communication (not one for plain messages, another one when there is a need for an exchange of documents,…)
revert to the old way of communicating , meaning by mail (using the reef proton account), so not using edgeryders any more.
You do you, @reef-building , but I do not recommend this working method. It fails in version control and archiving:
Version control: the architects send us a file, we put it somewhere. Later, they update it but forget to send us every update, so we are looking at files with the same title and different content.
Archiving; like 1, but now they do send us the update file, except now a different person in The Reef archives it in a different folder. And now we have two different versions of the same document on Nextcloud, archived according to different logics. It’s a recipe for messiness.
Proposed solution: put the architects themselves in charge of maintaining the documents they share with us. They can do that with the Nextcloud folder to which they have access. Using it is the best way to share documents, because (1) the architects can organize the files as they want, and assume responsibility for maintaining them organized; (2) the versioning problem is solved forever and (3) there will be no duplicates, and if there are it’s their mess, not hours, which gives us a better negotiating position.
So, I would insist with the architects: email attachments are forbidden from now on. Archive everything on Nextcloud. What is on Nextcloud will be treated by The Reef as authoritative information from the architects. What is not on Nextcloud we have a right (indeed, a duty towards the group) to ignore. This is the transparent way.
I think it is reasonable to expect, in 2024, that a professional taking on a 500K contract handles the documentation in a tidy, professional way. If you choose to do the archiving as Team Building instead, that’s fine, but then you will be responsible towards the rest of the group for it.
I agree with Alberto, and for me this goes beyond team autonomy. We have an agreement about working methods, which includes issues about transparency and documentation: all information should be easy to retrieve by everybody at any time. This includes communication with the architects (correspondence and meetings) and documents. The reasoning behind this is that it helps for efficiency, trust and accountability.
One concrete solution for the attachments issue could be to do a 15 minute online tutorial with them, showing them how Edgeryders works online and also going over Nextcloud (links and yadah). I currently have some flexibility in my schedule, so I’d be happy to volunteer if that helps.
Trying to get some clarity here, so please correct me where i misunderstand …
What you both agree on - i think - is that you don’t think that a communication with the architects by mail is the best solution.
I am not questioning the transparency and documentation that we agreed upon. If team building would want to abandon transparency and documentation, than yes this goes beyond team autonomy.
What I want to discuss with team building is ‘how to best do this’. And ‘how to implement this’, is for me team autonomy. So the way I see it: we need to and will respect transparency and documentation, but would like to discuss amongst us what the best way is to do this.
For me a communication via the proton mailbox is a transparent way of communicating. It is used for the communication with the notary, Oaktree, … Every reefling has access to it and can - at any moment- check the mails in the proton mailbox. The mails of the architects are organised in a seperate folder so quite easy to retrieve them.
My conclusion is that the current way of communication is not working because it is not efficient at all, so I think we want the same thing. On top of that it creates frustration, stress, overhead,…
What for me you do not agree on/ what you both see as solutions are different.
Alberto sees the solution in using the common nextcloud folder. Lee sees the solution in a continued use of ER for the communication.
With this post ‘my no’ is mainly a no against a further user of ER for the communication with the architects. I am still open to continue the use of the shared nextcloud folder.
Joannes has as task - if we continue with nextcloud - to see with the architects how better organising the folders/creating a structure to respond to ‘easy to retrieve by everybody at any time’. (even though i don’t see it part of the architects’ mission to document our info, but we can see how they respond and take it from there)
Sharing some experience/info about the communication with the architects, with using ER for communication, Nextcloud and mail
Some of the info the architects want to share is info coming from mails from external parties: the commune, companies they asked price offers off.
What we are talking about here is in fact two things. It is
the sharing and saving of documents and/or
the sharing of info, Q&A
My preference is to have the documents and the info linked to the document(s) in one and the same communication. With nextcloud you create a disconnection , which makes it harder to understand the documents.
Version control.
This is rarely necessary.
Most of the time we get a document. Sometimes we have questions and they anwer, there is no update of the document (maybe this is a problem).
We have different version of the plans, but i think here it is the goal to keep the different versions of the plans as seperate documents.
Nextcloud
We create a parallel document storage for team building files: the one we started/ the one shared with architects.
Maybe there is some functionality i am missing in Nextcloud, but it’s very hard to see if new info has arrived from the architects. I know you can see the recent documents added or changed, but if there is a lot of reef activity on nextcloud, then it’s not straightforward to have a clue if new info was added by them. In a mailbox you see an unread mail on top of the mailbox. A solution is that they then send us a message (mail/er/sms/?) to say there is extra info in folder x…
we recently created some ‘roles/tasks’ that were assigned to different people of TB. One of them is ‘archiving documentation/info’. For me his/her role is to make sure there is transparency, that info is easy to find. I don’t say this works perfectly now (and i saw your wish to retrieve the plans more easily, is one of the topics for a team building meeting), but this is for me an answer to your needs.
Conclusion
For me TB has definitely the aim to stay transparent and document the info we receive.
I think this needs a more thorough discussion in team building on how we want to proceed.
What is not clear is : does it need to come to a proposal that needs consenting to by the whole group? I understand that for Alberto this is not necessary, not clear from you Lee…
I confirm my task and will set up a meeting the architects to discuss all of this during the Xmas holidays, if they are available. My working hypothesis is that we should be able to get the architects to work in our collaborative workspace (NextCloud, Signal, ER, protonmail) in a disciplined way so no information gets lost and we know exactly what is the latest version of anything.
Got it. As someone with two decades of experience running distributed organizations, I have two remarks to offer:
There is a fundamental trade-off between short- and long-term efficiency. “Just send an email with an attachment” is short-term efficient, because you just do it from your Gmail or whatever, and it gets to destination. But it is long-term inefficient, because if that attachment is then updated and re-sent, even if it has thr same title, the recipient e-mail server creates a new file and keeps the old one. Now you have two different files with the same name, and must manually resolve the ambiguity. This will typically only become apparent much later, when someone needs that file and no longer remembers that it got updated, and when. Maintaining a shared archive is short -term inefficient, because you need to access the archive and manually and deliberately update it. But it is long-term efficient and safe, because that archive is trustable. The Reef is a project that lasts 6-7 years, and long-term efficiency is more important than in most projects.
We are a big client for S&F, and we have a right to put in some demands. For example, I would consider asking for a single point of contact in their studio, for greater accountability. That person can then use our methods while the rest of the studio continues to use whatever they like. Any glitch, it’s on them.
Also my takeaway on it.
Personally I join Joannes on believing we can make it work with our platforms, and that it will also be less wotk for us because it reduces the need for reporting. But I also haven’t been in the latest exchanges with the architects ,so I want to hear Els when she says it doesn’t work.
So let’s talk at our next meeting!
I am on the fence. The working methods document (which I have not re-read in a long time) overrides team autonomy in my understanding. Especially because the materials from the architects are not Team Build business, but everybody’s business. With respect, I already struggle to find relevant stuff. Latest example was yesterday:
My question now is: where is the latest esquisse? There are several folders with several dates.
I am under no illusion that somehow we will reach archiving nirvana. I do hope that, in case of trouble, I will be able to lay the blame on the architects instead of my future neighbors.
Now that we have a (big) contract with the architects and money is changing hands, we have reasons to ask that they communicate with us in a way that conforms to our working methods.
In my reading our working methods make the use of Edgyryders non-negotiable, because the search function, the possibility to move messages and the stacking of posts make it incredibly accessible. I also lose a lot of time looking for stuff from Team Building (files and communication with the architects), so I consider myself as someone who is affected, and therefore I would like to be included in the decision-making.
That said, that glitch with the attachments is unacceptable. I can imagine it leads to a lot of frustration, and reduced efficiency. My proposed solution would be to sit down with the architects and show them the online interface of Edgyryders.
For the folder structure I wouldn’t give that responsibility to the architects only. The entire Team Building folder would ideally be easy to navigate for everybody in The Reef. An example now is that (some of) the plans are saved under “Scouting exercise”, which is not really intuitive. My proposed solution here is that I take part in the folder restructuring. I happen to make my living as a bureaucrat for more than 10 years, and I currently take on this task in my unit. It’s more art than science, but I don’t mind it and people seem to appreciate my work. Just an offer though.
@els have a short bilateral scheduled tomorrow. Maybe we can also discuss it there?
Like mentionned , this topic will be on next team buildings meeting. We’ll come to a proposal that will be presented in a PM (hopefully somewhere in january)
For the TB-structure, i totally agree that it is not intuitive. It’s linked to the history of team building (back in the days that we went scouting) and should be revised and updated. But as many teams, we struggle with time to do everything.
This is not really something for a plenary meeting, more for a Coordination Group, but anyway.
January seems very far away though. Can it please be an option to prioritise bringing the communication with the architects back to Edgeryders ASAP? If it would be acceptable, I’d be happy to help.
Idem for the folder structure, where I offered help in my post above. What stands in the way of accepting it?
I have a meeting with S+F on 18 December to discuss our digital comms with them, including channels, folder structure and naming conventions. I’m doing this as a member of the team Building. I propose to await the outcome of this meeting. I’ve been reading what has been said and will take this into the meeting with S+F. Is that OK for now?
Thanks Joannes for that clarification, this was not clear to me. If possible I’d be grateful for a 2 minute chat about this. I’d like to get some reassurance that the communication will remain as easy to follow as it used to be.