Allow old leadership to help guide the conversation based off their transfer experience
Share what we learned this year to help prevent repeating mistakes
🧑🤝🧑 1:1 Meeting Times
Position
People
Time
President
David & Frances
Vice President
David & Tyler
Executive Director
Jake & ?
Secretary
Shaurya & Halimah
Treasurer
David & Tejas
Head of Design
Hilary & Frances
Head of Engineering
David & Kenneth
Head of Marketing
Frances & ?
Head of Product
?
Lead of API / Platform
N/A
Lead of Jupiter
Ruben & Ethan
Lead of Trends & Skedge
William & Abriham
\uD83D\uDDE3 Discussion topics
Item
Notes
Projects Discussion
Ticket assignment
pairing new + old members to work together was good
new recruitment process helped filter members
Specifically assigning someone in charge of a ticket, assign someone to help might be helpful
Might be better to ping people (respectfully) on the shared channel, but DM is still good
At start of semester, should identify 2-3 big ticket things to complete in first part of the semester (ideally)
People often don’t know how to address a new ticket, could allow time in the meeting to start on a ticket in pairs to get over the initial difficulty
Break down every task into smaller tickets, ideally give some difficulty weighting to them. Helps to keep people from being overwhelmed.
Tickets can be proposals/research, not just “work”
Do not assign big tickets at the start, even for experienced recruits. If they move fast, give them big(er) tickets
People don’t ask for help, so leads need to reach out to people first
Meeting structure
ask people about their through process, show ticket in front of room to discuss as a group. Be direct. Lead is guiding the conversation, but allowing team member to talk through it. This worked well to increase engagement
Hangout before/after meeting helps the team to connect
Virtual meetings had less attendance - people have more incentive to show up in person. Expectation to be there physically. Active contributors was same across virtual/in-person approach.
Spring Semester is typically busy for contributors, lower output is expected. Higher recruitment second semester may have helped.
Meeting outline ahead of time helps meetings run more efficiently. Especially important for design discussions. Ask team to add to the agenda
Meeting notes outline 1 day ahead of the meeting could be helpful as a standard practice
Consider making meetings 1.5 hours, to allow time to review notes/prepare
Can lean into a more async approach - most of our work is outside of meetings
Suggestion: do kickoff on week 2, have two weeks for both social meetings and project meetings
When leads can’t make it to social events, we lose out on that opportunity
Intro sessions were more efficient/direct than social approach. We should make interest sessions the main approach?
Meeting times
We should have (at least) a preliminary time. Moving rooms is a pain.
Retention
Product was inconsistent
Why are people leaving?
Schoolwork is the biggest reason to leave
Some want to move faster with personal projects
Team meetings are critical - need to be solid.
How do we make Nebula work more manageable - overarching idea
Honors students tend to be better candidates for staying involved. Could talk to CV honors. they have an email list
semi-professional approach was good
If people are looking for something else, we can’t do much to change it, but we can improve our image so recruits know what we are about
Competing with ACM Projects - Finished project (ACM) vs a longer process that’s less instantly gratifying
slow progress is intended to build better products
Messaging
Want to better show team’s impact - stats on adoption. Show that our stuff isn’t useless and abandoned. Prove Why we want a professional culture
Good experience, org stability, more difficult/original work
Product team
Average product recruit is very academic, does not have real-world product experience.
Frances Hill We could have Marketing team include Product work. (user interviews, data analytics)
We could send marketing people to every meeting
We do not need/want people with product-specific experience
It’s critical to get a good division head here
One idea was to have a freestanding design team that could service all projects, but this requires skilled designers with commitment, which did not work out.
The conclusion is that embedding design within teams was better, having them work as a full team member.
Head of Design could then approve design work before it goes out.
We need to find a good head of design
Could have a publicized invite to have people sit in on meetings around November
Discord onboarding needs to be better.
Channels should be opt-out
Inexperienced but excited candidates
they need to be able to independently learn (and want to). We should only give them a push and suggestion to learn.
Critical problem is that we don’t have leadership to drive education initiatives
BUT, we shouldn’t turn away people who are VERY interested and can and will learn on their own
Marketing
Communication with leads
Need to let leads/projects submit stuff to marketing
Idea: use threads in the projects channel
Idea: could have separate versions of the division channels
Some people don’t have discord notifications. We should draw a line on that.
Splitting up Marketing
Marketing is doing a lot, and wanting to do more.
Events division might be helpful, but not for recruiting.
Unclear what the org actually needs from marketing (events, requirement, planning, etc)
Marketing team is overwhelmed, could expand leadership to help
We should be cautious about making formal organizational splits, better to have internal teams within the existing division.
Project Lead Role
It’s about people, not just the product
People should be learning and enjoying their time, along with making progress on tickets
Should be a peer, not a manager
Your vision (and teaching) gives the team structure
Outside of meetings, lead office hours may help to be available, and use the time to reach out to people
Should share insights with other leadership
Division Head Role
Ideally, communication flows from officer team to division head
All - if you have an internship, send Frances Hill a picture of you at the job. if you’re graduating, send Frances your after-grad plans. If you’re traveling, send plans and photo from the place.