Refactoring the Vancouver PHP Association
Some important things have been changing at the Vancouver PHP Association.
Over the last four or five years, we’ve seen the interests of the core participants growing broader and broader. Where PHP used to be the key tool in our toolbox, platforms built on PHP (like Drupal) and other languages have grown to be of equal importance to many of us.
What has grown in importance over this time is the open Net. As our careers, our social life, our civic engagements, our finances and more – much of our lives – have become more and more enmeshed with the Net, our freedom is in some way predicated on its freedom. Even faithful PHP depends in part on the Net being free and open.
At our last board member meeting last year we discussed setting a new direction for the organization. We’ve been hinting at this for a few years through our Vancouver Open Web conference, but it is time for us to seriously start thinking about what we want to be as we move forward.
I’ve put together some brief and simple notes for the board on how I think we could move ahead and we’d love your input.
I believe that we need a few things to move ahead.
First, we should rough out a statement of why we exist, what motivates us and – at
a high level – what we hope to achieve.
Once we have a rough purpose in place, we should think about what principles we want for the organization. Our principles are the fundamental requirements for how we do things. A good way to suss our principles can be to complete this statement: “I would give others control of the organization as long as they …”
Once we’ve agreed on purpose and principles, we should brainstorm about how to realize our purpose.
The best and most achievable ideas from the brainstorm should be developed into goals we can measure against, and use to motivate and align with others.
After we do these things, we should review what we’ve got, polish into a coherent whole and then get busy.
Does this seem like a good process (GTD adherents are likely to recognise it)? Are there other proposals on moving forward?
Posted on Monday, February 16th, 2009 at 17:23
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February 16th, 2009 at 17:24
[...] A humorous letter from the Vancouver PHP User Group alluding to our coming change of focus. Read more at http://zak.greant.com/refactoring-the-vancouver-php-association [...]
February 16th, 2009 at 22:36
It’s very hard to change the direction of an existing organization. It might be easier to shutter it and create a new one, with an explicit opening up of new participants, with an explicit new signing up of “members”, around the new focus. Gives people who really cared more about the old mission a way out without having to be explicit, and ensures that the habits/DNA of the old organization isn’t getting in the way of a vibrant new organism.