Guidelines for Trust and Identity Working Group Chairs and Flywheels
Time to spin up a new collaborative working group? First of all, thanks for stepping into this leadership role. The community relies on and appreciates your efforts.
Wondering how the email list, wiki, calendar, agendas and other details will work? Wondering how to get support if you hit some challenges in steering the working group? This page is designed to help.
Roles Overview
Working Group Chair: Provides input to the charter for the group, provides overall strategic leadership, guides group toward producing the charter deliverables, manages high level decisions on how the group engages with Internet2 and the community at large, acts as liaison between community and Internet2 leadership.
Working Group Flywheel: Provides administrative support to Chair, helps manage communication amongst Working Group membership, tracks and ensures follow-up of project deliverables and action items which come out of meetings. Note: not all Working Groups will be assigned a Flywheel. In these cases the duties of the Flywheel will fall to the Chair, with some duties being distributed to members of the Working Group.
Start-up Steps for a Working Group
Who does it? | Step |
Internet2/InCommon Leadership | Develop charge/scope document. Examples:
|
Internet2/InCommon Leadership | Identify a chair and (optionally) co-chair for the working group |
Internet2/InCommon Leadership | In the case of a governance or advisory group, there may be an Internet2 flywheel assigned, that is, a designated Internet2 staff member to assist with the group. See Table of Internet2 Support Levels to Trust and Identity Working Groups. |
Chair | Publicize call for membership. See Tools for Publicizing Working Groups. See also Procedures for Recruiting New Group Members |
Chair | Consider the stakeholders who should be represented on the working group and do targeted outreach as appropriate.
|
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Email mw-service@internet2.edu to request email list, BlueJeans connection and wiki space:
|
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Determine the meeting schedule
|
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Optional: Establish a calendar invite using Outlook
|
Notes/Minutes and other Tools
Who does it? | Step |
---|---|
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Notes / minutes (if needed) Collaborative scribing using a Google doc is recommended.
|
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Logistics Requests
|
Internet2/InCommon Leadership |
|
Ongoing Support
Who does it? | Step |
---|---|
Chair and Flywheel (if available) |
Ensure good practice is followed for working group calls, including:
|
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Make sure that Action Items are noted during the call, and reviewed at the end of the call. |
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | For software development groups, ensure that all contributors have signed the contrib agreement. |
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Wiki / website should be updated with relevant information |
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Update the community on status / milestones /accomplishments. See Tools for Publicizing Working Groups. |
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Schedule Birds of a Feather (BOF) sessions or working group meetings at Internet2 Conferences |
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Schedule and coordinate additional Face-to-Face meetings as needed |
Chair and Internet2 | For groups where the charter dictates membership terms (i.e. governance and advisory groups) ensure that the terms are adhered to, and new members are recruited and on-boarded accordingly. Send letter of appreciation to outgoing members of governance and advisory groups (Emily Eisbruch will help with this) |
Tips/Good Practice for a Successful Working Group
During Calls:
- Prior to calls, send out agenda (see above in "Ongoing support" section)
- Welcome group members
- Be sure to announce that the Internet2 Intellectual Property Framework is in effect
- Follow agenda; if completely new items come up, consider adding them to the agenda for a future call
- Leave time for questions
- Review Action Items at end of call
- Finish calls on time
- Draw out people who may be reticent or shy
Other:
- Serve as a bridge to Internet2 staff where needed
Serve as a bridge/ambassador to related Internet2 and community efforts.
- Stay in touch with the chair of the body that chartered your working group (e.g. Steering, TAC, AAC, TIER Advisory group).
- Gently but firmly move efforts forward/toward conclusion
- Remember that you don't need full agreement on points, you need to strive for consensus: A solution people can accept.
- Can also allow minority opinions in a final report if there are significant differences.
- Time-box comment periods and then move forward
- Work to wrap up very long discussions/discussion threads on calls/email
- When reports/ recommendations are to be produced, it generally works best of there are a small number (one to three) of authors and the rest of the group provides feedback. The chair should probably set expectations accordingly.
- Acknowledge group membership contributions
- On working group calls, in emails, and in other forums, create a friendly, positive experience
Consultation Process for Getting Feedback on Proposed Documents
- Post the proposed document or a link to it on the wiki (document can be in a PDF)
- Add a table to collect community comments on the document
- List the document in a new row in the table on the Consultations page
- Email the constituent mailing list(s) with a request for consultation / review and a timeframe.
- In this email, state that comments must be put on the table on the wiki, comments posted only the mailing list will not be acted upon
- Inform the trust and identity group of the new Open Consultation (with an email to trust-id-staff@internet2.edu) so it can be promoted on Internet2/InCommon newsletters, social media and other avenues
- One week before close of consultation, send an email reminder of the open consultation and the date it will close
- After the Consultation review period closes, the working group should address community comments
- Email the lists announcing the revised document, if applicable
- Allow time (how much?) for a final community review if changes have been made based on community input
Closing a Group
When a group finishes its work or gets transitioned/combined for a new phase of work:
Summarize the group’s work
Update the community on group's accomplishments. See Tools for Publicizing Working Groups.
Express appreciation to group members for their contribution
Email to the appropriate list(s) of the group’s closing
Indicate on the wiki and / or website the group's completed status
Remove calendar item from people's calendars (if applicable)
Close Sympa email list after a period of time (optional, there may a reason to keep the list around in case follow-up is needed)
See Also:
Tools for Publicizing Working Groups
Internet2 Support Levels to Trust and Identity Working Groups (Google Doc)
Flywheel Specific Info