[Committees-chairs] Job descriptions for support staff

[Mark Bristow]

I just want to echo Jason's and the OP's comments.  We need to make sure we
are holding our committee members accountable and ensuring that they are
providing actionable results.

On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 12:12 PM, Jason Li <jason.li at owasp.org> wrote:

> Kate,
>
> I agree full heartedly with this statement.
>
> I think it's a potentially dangerous precedent that we're setting with
> having support staff for each of the committees - it's too easy to offload
> responsibility and work to a staff member. The Projects Committee is as
> guilty as any on this issue - Paulo has taken a disproportionately large
> amount of the burden of managing OWASP Projects. That's why (as I noted
> during the Board call) we placed funding a GPC support staff as third in
> priority on the GPC budget *after* GPC Working Sessions - because I think
> it's critically important for the GPC to first define exactly what
> responsibilities we want to task Paulo with so that he and any other support
> staff are not unduly burdened by our lack of organization.
>
> Our committees are still maturing and growing into their leadership role.
> As a result, I'm deeply concerned that OWASP staff members such as yourself,
> Paulo, Sarah, and any other committee support staff will be overworked and
> overloaded with responsibilities that are more appropriately owned by
> committee members.
>
> I'm open to suggestions on how best to avoid such a situation...
>
> -Jason
>
> On Mon, Mar 21, 2011 at 11:40 AM, Kate Hartmann <kate.hartmann at owasp.org>wrote:
>
>> I know that several committee chairs are in the process of drafting “job
>> descriptions” for their approved support staff.  I would just like to point
>> out a thought by one committee member regarding the utilization of support
>> staff versus efforts from committee members.  It is important to understand
>> that these roles are not to supersede efforts of the committee members.
>> There has been quite a bit of discussion
>>
>>
>>
>> “… if people are joining committees basically just to be "recognized" as a
>> "leader" and/or only to spout out "ideas" and not do any actual work, then
>> our governance system should be kicking them out …[possibly] the committee
>> chair [should be] responsible for asking for committee members to volunteer
>> to take on certain tasks or portions thereof, and in the absence of
>> volunteers assigning instead, and then tracking their progress; and if
>> they're not meeting reasonable milestones the governance model would dictate
>> they are removed from the committee.
>>
>>
>>
>> I personally think it's quite different to join a committee and do nothing
>> more than attend meetings than it is to create a project or even a chapter
>> and then do nothing to move it forward. I like the fact that anyone can
>> volunteer to contribute in almost any way to OWASP including creating
>> entirely new projects, chapters, wiki pages, etc., but the committees should
>> be much, much more professional and disciplined. The committee members
>> should understand that they're expected to lead and it's not an option, it's
>> a requirement.”
>>
>>
>>
>> Kate Hartmann
>>
>> Operations Director
>>
>> 301-275-9403
>>
>> www.owasp.org
>>
>> Skype:  Kate.hartmann1
>>
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
>
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>


-- 
Mark Bristow
(703) 596-5175
mark.bristow at owasp.org

OWASP Global Conferences Committee Chair - http://is.gd/5MTvF
OWASP DC Chapter Co-Chair - http://is.gd/5MTwu
AppSec DC Organizer - https://www.appsecdc.org
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