[ubuntu-uk] [ANNOUNCE] Time for a change

[Alan Pope]

2008/10/17 ptaylor <scraliontis at gmail.com>:
> What does the role of UK LOCO POC involve, what responsabilities, and
> tasks does it involve,
>

Good question.

The role used to be called 'Team Leader'. However there was a meeting
(whilst I was on holiday) where it was decided that the role should be
"Point of Contact" rather than "Team Leader". The vote was done ad-hoc
- i.e. it wasn't on the agenda for that meeting but was decided to
hold the vote during the meeting. If it had been on the agenda I'd
probably have made effort to attend and protest, but I was on holiday
with no net connection and didn't find out until afterwards.

I believe it was a mistake to make this change so explicitly, but
respected it anyhow. However as the holder of the position I have felt
for the last year that it would be churlish to try to overturn this,
and have instead waited until I step down before saying anything about
it on the list. This change in name of the role is - in part - one of
the reasons I have been reluctant to try to push the team to do
_anything_ for fear of "you're not a _leader_, you're just a PoC" type
reprisals.

Note - most if not all other teams within the Ubuntu project have
'Leaders', there is a Leadership Code of Conduct [0] which kinda
implies that teams have leaders.

This has somewhat diluted (in name if not in role) the position in my
opinion. Whilst it is _only_ a name, it has a profound psychological
effect on the person holding the position. A 'Leader' might be
responsible for doing things such as organising promotional events,
bug jams and such. A 'Point of Contact' is more of a passive role,
responding to contact from outside the team, and being a liason
between this team and others (such as the LoCo Council [on which I
also stand], the Community Council and so on).

This is pretty much the role I have taken on over the last year,
despite other members of the team telling me to "ignore that vote" and
"you're a leader by action if not by name".

Back to your question. I would suggest that a typical team leader should:-

* Hold regular meetings online
* Inform the team of developments within the UK
* Schedule events within the UK - bug jams, packaging jams
* Show leadership by contributing to Ubuntu in the way one might expect others.
* Try to follow the Leadership Code of Conduct [0] closely
* Anything else that they can think of.

Cheers,
Al.

[0] http://www.ubuntu.com/community/leadership-conduct