[Ubuntu-US-CA] Team organization and dispute resolution

[Robert Wall]

Hi everyone,

As many of you know, for a long while now there's been drama in this 
group between Grant (and others) on one side, and Neal (and others) on 
the other. It's popped up on the mailing list, it's come up repeatedly 
in PM on IRC, and in its current incarnation, it's happening in 
private emails between LoCo members.

In the run up to LoCo approval, and I guess also prompted by Eric's 
email (which to my knowledge was entirely unrelated, but it seems some 
people have been prompted by it), this drama has refocused and now I 
find myself reading emails in my inbox about restructuring the team. 
Some people want elected councils, other people want elected leaders, 
and everyone's generally having fun criticizing our current structure 
and proposing alternatives.

I have a problem with this private discussion, and I would like it to 
stop. The purpose of this email is to explain why I think it needs to 
stop, summarize some of the raised issues thusfar and then what I see 
as the problem with this team, and get input from both the people 
involved and those who have been fortunate enough to not have to deal 
with this headache thusfar.

== Why private discussion needs to stop ==

First off, I personally believe that every single person involved in 
all this, on both sides, including Grant, Neal, and myself, 100% want 
this LoCo to succeed. I believe that we all have this LoCo's best 
interests as a motivator, and that nobody is "trolling" or being 
"poisonous" because nobody here intends to damage this team.

However, despite this intent, the end result of this drama and private 
discussions is a fostering of bad will, and a sapping of energy that 
should be directed productively. I know for a fact that people have 
left the mailing list because of the drama that has seeped through to 
it, and I understand why. It's taking a toll on me personally, as 
energy that I would love to spend on LoCo advocacy, documentation, and 
other stuff is being pushed into heated PM and email discussions. 
Again, this is not the intention of those involved, but this is 
ultimately the result. Everyone involved in this is responsible to 
various extents, and I would appreciate it if this drama didn't get 
furthered by assigning specific blame.

During this time, I've been asked to keep discussion off the mailing 
list, because people feel that it constitutes "calling people out" 
publicly. I've been told it fosters an increase in drama. Well, you 
know what? Everyone PMing and emailing behind everyone else's back 
fosters much, much more. It's like being back in middle school 
sometimes, it's not productive, and it sure isn't preferential to 
transparency.

== The discussion thusfar ==

Thusfar, the sentiment in my inbox has focused on the notion that 1) 
individual people within this community are to blame for the drama 
that is going on in it, 2) we need new LoCo leadership because the 
current leadership is biased and/or not democratic and/or forcing 
their [1] opinions on others.

( [1] and it is "their"; despite various sentiments to the contrary, 
decisions in this group are made based on input from various people. 
Some of those people are in the minority of said people, and dislike 
this situation, but nevertheless, discussion happens )

I disagree with both of these counts completely. I feel that 
criticizing and eventually replacing our current leadership, whether 
with a single elected person or a council, is tackling the symptom and 
not the cause. I feel that blaming individual people here for this 
group's problems is also tackling the symptom and not the cause.

== The actual problem here. ==

So, what do I see the cause as being here?

Well, let's take a concrete example here that demonstrates a lot of 
our problems thusfar.

Grant and Neal (amongst others, though they're the primary 
figureheads, if you will) disagree on whether we should have a link to 
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/CaliforniaTeam/Projects/UserGroupContacts/Groups 
on the wiki menu. Yes, for those who haven't heard, that never got 
sorted out. So, how did we go about dealing with this?

(I'm doing this from memory, so maybe it's not entirely accurate, but 
it is typical.)

- Grant and Neal discussed it in the #ubuntu-california IRC channel. 
They couldn't come to a consensus.

- It was discussed privately on IRC among me, Grant, Neal, and others. 
We eventually stopped doing that because we weren't get anywhere.

- It ended up on the mailing list. Problems ensued with people new to 
the discussion misinterpreting emails from both sides, everything got 
really confusing, and (as I said earlier) people left the list over 
it.

- A couple more private messaging discussions happened. Nothing got 
dealt with.

- We are here.

In my opinion, the frustration borne out of this and other clashes 
between Neal and Grant, and the inability of us to resolve disputes 
like this one, are the primary motivations behind a lot of the ill 
will in this community, a lot of questionable behavior on both sides, 
and, generally, The Problem That Needs Solving.

Usually the next step in a small team like this one would be to ask 
the group leader to rule one way or the other, but one of the parties 
involved /is/ the group leader, so accusations of bias and more ill 
will would result.

So, we're stuck where we are now, with unresolved issues causing 
people to blame each other for the group's problems, and a feeling by 
some of our members that our team leader needs replacing.

== What do I feel needs changing in this team's organization? ==

I believe that we would get a lot, lot closer to team harmony with the 
creation and use of a dispute resolution process. We need to figure 
out how to get all of this poisonous disagreement that's built up over 
the past months sorted out, so that people have more faith in 1) our 
team in general, and 2) Grant, Neal, and the other people involved in 
all this in particular.

So, how would this work? One way would be to make a council of active 
LoCo team members to rule on situations like this. However, I don't 
think that will work, because most of the active LoCo members, myself 
included, are too personally invested in one or the other (or 
frequently both) side of this drama to make a ruling that everyone 
would see as fair.

The other common way of dealing with problems like this is to ask 
someone outside the LoCo to come in, look at the underlying problems, 
and work with both sides to figure things out. This has come up 
occasionally in the LoCo the past, but I don't think it's ever been 
initiated.

Fundamentally, we need to come up with some sort of process for 
clearing the air, and I think that trying to find a process that's 
acceptable to everyone involved in this, in public, would be a much 
better use of everyone's time than private emails about everything.

I appreciate your thoughts on this matter, especially if they're in 
public.

~ Robert