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.
Table of Contents minLevel 2
Roles Overview
Working Group Chair(s): 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. There is the option to have working group co-chairs rather than a single working group chair.
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.
Reference on Working Group Categories (governance groups vs. advisory groups vs SIGs etc.) is here
Start-up Steps for a Working Group
Who does it? | Step |
Internet2/InCommon Leadership | Develop charge/scope document. Examples:
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Internet2/InCommon Leadership, including members of Governance/Advisory groups | 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, Recruiting New Members and Onboarding. |
Chair | Consider the stakeholders who should be represented on the working group and do targeted outreach as appropriate.
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Flywheel or Internet2 Trust and Identity Staff | Collaboration resources For email list and wiki space, Internet2 flywheels (or other staff) use a form to spin up a collaboration.
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Chair or flywheel (if available) | Determine the meeting schedule
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Flywheel or Internet2 Trust and Identity Staff | Set up Zoom for video or phone conferencing
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Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Optional: Establish a calendar invite using Outlook (check here for process using shared calendar)
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Flywheel or Internet2 Trust and Identity Staff | Be sure the new working group is listed in
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Notes/Minutes and other Tools
Info |
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This page is in progress. Not complete as of July 2015 |
Overall Support Needs for a Group
Processes for establishing and supporting a working group are listed below. The startup steps generally require Internet2 staff support. The ongoing support functions are sometimes done by an Internet2 staff flywheel, and sometimes by the working group chair.
Start Up
Develop charge/scope document
For reference, examples:
Identify a chair and co-chair
Publicize call for membership, may involve using
emails to existing group lists
blog
Facebook/Twitter
Outreach to key stakeholder communities to get appropriate group membership
mailing list (Sympa)
Decision: is this an open list that anyone can join, or do individuals need to be approved before being added?
Edial phone bridge
wiki (Confluence)
meeting schedule
may use a Doodle Poll to determine members’ availability
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Additional Infrastructure
notes / minutes if needed
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other tools as needed, such as:
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voting tool
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community forum tool
Who does it? | Step |
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Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Notes / minutes (if needed) Collaborative scribing using a Google doc is recommended.
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Video Conferencing
Ongoing Support
Feel free to Email collaboration-support@internet2.edu to request help with the above tools Note January 2017: The Per-Entity Metadata Working Group used EtherPad for collaborative scribing. Motivation to use Etherpad was around unpopular subscription requirements for Google (or Box). Read about the pros and cons of EtherPad here. | |
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Logistics Requests
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Ongoing Support
Who does it? | Step |
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Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Ensure good practice is followed for working group calls, including:
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agenda should include:
roll call
Intellectual Property Framework Reminder
agenda bash
| |
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) |
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For software development groups, ensure that all contributors |
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have signed the contrib agreement. | |
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Wiki / website |
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should be updated with relevant information |
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Internet2 staff flywheels, please see these instructions to maintain info on group membership in Salesforcehttps://internet2.box.com/s/68g9buiofe8tusi99pctlogh94epjhqi | |
Chair and Flywheel (if available) | Update the community on status / milestones /accomplishments. |
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press release
blog
Internet2 or InCommon Facebook
Internet2 or InCommon Twitter
webinars
Blurb in
Internet2 Community Update or
InCommon Monthly Newsletter
presentations at Internet2 meetings
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presentations at other organizations' meetings
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Schedule BOFs at Internet2 meetings
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Schedule and coordinate additional F2F meetings as needed
See Tools for Publicizing Working Groups, Recruiting New Members and Onboarding. | |
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 |
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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 |
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on-boarded accordingly. Send letter of appreciation to outgoing members of governance and advisory groups |
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(Jessica Coltrin will help with this) |
Producing Work Items
Who does it? | Step |
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Chair and Working Group Members | The chair and working group members are responsible for producing work items. Editing assistance is available upon request. For additional assistance, please contact the working group flywheel. Remember to follow the document stewardship process. |
Tips/Good Practice for a Successful Working Group
- Prior to calls, send out agenda (see above in "Ongoing support" section)
During Calls, the Chair(s) should:
- Welcome group members
- Be sure to announce that the Internet2 Intellectual Property Framework is in effect
- Include an Agenda Bash at the top of the agenda, so participants can potentially add to the agenda
- Follow agenda; if completely new items come up, consider adding them to the agenda for a future call
- Provide a summary before launching into an agenda item,
- remember that group members may be foggy about the goals or substance of an an issue that seems very clear to you, as the chair
- Leave time for questions
- Review Action Items at end of call
- Finish calls on time
- Draw out people who may be reticent or shy
Working Group Chair(s) should also:
- 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, CTAB, CACTI).
- 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.
- Use the Consultation Process (details are below) to get community feedback on working group reports and proposals.
- Acknowledge group membership contributions
- On working group calls, in emails, and in other forums, create a friendly, positive experience
- For ongoing working groups, develop a yearly work plan and evaluate/track progress on a regular basis
Document Stewardship Procedures
- The Trust and Identity Document Stewardship process is key to preserving documents that your working group produces.
- If your working group is producing documents, please refer to the processes HERE .
- An important function of the WG Chair who is helping to shepherd a document is to ensure that all authors are listed along with their ORCID ID. https://orcid.org/about
- You may want to encourage community members without an ORCID ID to set one up so they will get proper recognition for their contribution.
- If you have any questions, please contact the librarian, ti-librarian@internet2.edu.
Consultation for Getting Feedback on Proposed Documents
Timeframe
- Consultations are typically open for 4-6 weeks, as noted at top of the Trust and Identity Consultations wiki, so factor that into the schedule.
Set Up Consultation
- Post the proposed document or a link to it on the wiki for the working group (document can be in a PDF)
- Create a new wiki page for the consultation as a child page from the wiki for the working group. If there is no working group wiki associated with the consultation, consult with Netta Caligari on the best placement for the new wiki page.
- See example
- List the consultation in a new row in the table on the Trust and Identity Consultations page
Announce Consultation
- Chair should email the constituent mailing list(s) with a request for consultation / review and clearly stating the timeframe.
- In this email, state that comments must be put on the table on the wiki, and that comments posted only to the mailing list will not be acted upon
- See example email to open a consultation (from OIDC Survey WG Report Consultation)
- Flywheel should Inform the trust and identity team by email of the new Open Consultation so it can be promoted on Internet2/InCommon newsletters, social media and other avenues
Close the Consultation
- One week before close of consultation:
- Working Group Chair send an email reminder of the open consultation and the date it will close
- Flywheel will remind chair to do this if possible
- Flywheel put a reminder of Consultation end date on InCommon Facebook at Twitter
- Include the Consultation closing date in an InCommon Newsletter if timing works out
- Working Group Chair 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 (suggestion of 7 days) for a final community review if significant and potentially controversial 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, Recruiting New Members and Onboarding.
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)
Update the Salesforce Committee record for each member, with the term end date
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)
Your Suggestions
Please help us to improve the working group process which is so vital to our community work.
Send your suggestions on these guidelines or other matters related to working groups Netta Caligari jcaligari@internet2.edu.
See Also:
List of Trust and Identity Working Groups
Tools for Publicizing Working Groups, Recruiting New Members and Onboarding
Internet2 Support Levels to Trust and Identity Working Groups (Google Doc)
Flywheel Specific Info
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Sometimes groups finish their work or get transitioned/combined for a new phase of work. Closing a group may involve:
Summarize the group’s work
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
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)
Suggested Strategies to Better Support Groups
Use a collaboration management platform (CMP)
Increases efficiency in setting up and maintaining the group, as one list of names (sometimes compiled via an email invitation process) can be fed into multiple tools (Sympa and Confluence, and hopefully in the future a scheduling tool).
The LARPP project has used the COmanage CMP
Standardize procedures for setting up a wiki space for a new WG. (Done, new working groups are at top level in spaces wiki. Must be listed on the WG Home page here.)
Collaborative Scribing
Leads to more accurate and timely notes, as they are compiled and reviewed by the group in real time
the collaborative scribing approach (with Google docs) is being used successfully by the Grouper Working Group and the Technology Exchange 2015 Trust & Identity Meeting Planning Group. Has also been successful at the ACAMP Unconference
Establish/Maintain a spreadsheet of community members (and their interest/expertise) willing to serve on working groups.
Benefits include:
Provide a clearer pathway to involvement
Lead to a more broadly engaged community
Help avoid a small group of people getting tapped repeatedly
A tool for new leadership development
Archive Strategy - need to work on procedures
Maintain metadata
Be sure all is easily findable both during and after the working group
Suggested Tool Strategy - need to work on procedures
Standard Tools (Sympa, Confluence, Edial)
Supplementary Tools, Box vs Google Docs , etc (highlight Pros and Cons)
Provide "how to" document on chairing a working group
Could include
Boiler Plate Charge document (Emily working on this)
Welcoming group members
Defining goals
Sending out agendas, starting with the "top-of-agenda basics" (roll call, Intellection Property Reminder, agenda bash)
Following agenda
Leaving time for questions
Finish calls on time
Drawing out people who may be reticent or shy
Provide resources needed for group members to be successful
Serving as a bridge to Internet2 staff where needed
Serving as a bridge/ambassador to other Internet2 efforts
Gently but firmly moving efforts forward/toward conclusion - skillsets for wrapping up very long discussions/discussion threads on calls/email
Acknowledging group membership contributions
- Creating a friendly, positive experience