Team Leader Responsibilities Policy

Version 1.0

Team Leader Responsibilities Policy

Article 1. Introduction. This document sets out the responsibilities of a Team Leader of a Team or Working Group of Joomla! and aims to provide a helpful resource to assist them in their role. For clarity we have chosen for a bulleted format rather than a verbose description.

Article 2. Responsibilities. 

Organisational

• Read all board reports and motions to keep informed about changes that may affect the team, any queries to be discussed with the Department Coordinator
• Organise monthly meetings at a minimum, and bi-weekly meetings where necessary, unless agreed otherwise with the Department Coordinator
  • Define a regular schedule for team meetings, taking into account the differing time zones of team members
  • Prepare an agenda at least 7 days in advance of the meeting so that team members can populate it in the days preceding the meeting
  • Send out Google Calendar invites for the meeting at least 7 days in advance to the team’s Google Group
  • Hold the meeting using Google Meet for audio/video meetings or Mattermost for text meetings
  • Write up meeting minutes and following the team’s approval, post them on the reporting section of the team’s profile on the Volunteer Portal within a few days of the meeting
• Attend the department meetings
  • Populate the appropriate section in the agenda at least 24 hours before the meeting, for all information available at that time
  • Raise any queries or discussion points from the team
  • For any significant or critical information, do not wait for the meeting and instead notify the Department Coordinator immediately
  • If the Team Leader cannot attend the meeting, the Assistant Team Leader should attend instead
• Prepare and submit a yearly budget for the team to Department Coordinator ahead of the financial year (July - June), listing the known fixed expenditures (e.g. service renewals), projected incomes (e.g. sponsorships) and expenditure requests (e.g. holding a team sprint)
• Organise budgetary spending; must be approved in advance by Department Coordinator
• Plan and organise any eventual team sprints or attendance at events
• If any motions are to take place:
  • The motion must be seconded by a team member before voting can commence
  • All motions to have three options for voters: For, Against, Abstain
  • Once seconded, voting can take place in one of the following ways:
    • During a team meeting, if the motion is present on the agenda at least 24 hours before and a majority quorum (greater than 50%) of team members with the right to vote is present or via proxies
    • Outside of a team meeting to be conducted over email with a maximum one-week timeframe for response, team members who don’t respond will be recorded as having abstained from the vote
  • Voting can be anonymous if necessary
  • A motion is passed if the majority of the votes (greater than 50%) are in favour
  • The Department Coordinator may choose to increase the majority quorum requirement to a 2/3 majority as deemed necessary, to also/better factor in the minimum number of voters and abstainers - such changes will be documented and reported to the board
  • Inform the Department Coordinator of the motion and its results so that it can be added to the official motion registry on behalf of the team
• Liaise with other teams and departments as necessary to aid the team’s work and goals 
• Handle the handover to the next Team Leader in case of succession, as detailed further below
• Manage team’s resources and request/arrange access where necessary (including, but not limited to: Google Group, Google Drive, Github, social media, Mattermost, email) 
  • All documents, sheets, files, data etc should be kept in the team’s official folder in the Department’s Google Drive and never in personal accounts
  • Access to the team’s Google Drive folder should be done via the team’s Google Group
  • Official policies must always be followed for all resources and tools

Team Members and Contributors

• Appoint an Assistant Team Leader from within the team
  • If the Team Leader is not able to attend a meeting, they should ensure that the Assistant Team Leader is able to represent the team and has the necessary resources to do so
• If the team has an official website, appoint a member of the team to join the Webmasters Team and ensure that this member is following all defined changes, rules and policies from the Webmasters Team
• Ensure that the team’s profile on the Volunteer Portal is kept up to date with team description, current members, available roles and contact information
• Ensure that at least two members of the team are able to complete any critical tasks or operations so that a fallback is in place
• Provide support to all team members and contributors and thank them for their work and feedback
• If it would help the team achieve its work, request that a member of another team to join this team as a liason
• Delegate work within the team as appropriate
• Ensure that all team members:
  • Are attending the team meetings every month, unless excused or agreed otherwise and are populating the meeting agendas
  • Are actively participating in the team’s work and helping it achieve its goals
  • Have the necessary tools and resource access to participate in the team’s work
  • Inform the team leadership of any periods of unavailability or additional availability
• Ensure that all team contributors are participating in the team’s work
• If a member or contributor isn’t participating in the team’s work at the required levels, arrange a chat with them to find out the reason and see if it can be resolved and explain that their membership could be downgraded / revoked if participation levels don’t improve
• Depending on the composition and the work of a team, a team can decide to have subteams to work on a specified task to support the work of the parent team

Onboarding / Offboarding

• Team member / contributor onboarding
  • Exchange communications or arrange an informal chat to see if the potential volunteer is a good fit for the team and has the required time, skills and knowledge
  • If the volunteer is to join the team
    • Decide if the role is that of a contributor or member
    • Inform the Department Coordinator
    • Request official email account creation via OSM Secretary (members only, not contributors)
    • Arrange for any necessary accesses (including, but not limited to: Google Group, Google Drive, Github, Mattermost, email) 
    • Provide training for the role
    • Provide support to the new member / contributor
    • Update the Volunteer Portal and ensure that the member has populated their address details as required by the bylaws
  • If the volunteer will not be joining the team
    • Inform the Volunteer Engagement Team of the discussion and invite them to contact the volunteer to see if they would be a good fit with an alternate team
• Team member / contributor offboarding
  • Enquire as to why the volunteer has chosen to leave the team
  • Thank them for their time as part of the team
  • Update the Volunteer Portal
  • Inform the Department Coordinator
  • Inform the Volunteer Engagement Team
  • Remove their access to all team resources and accounts, including the team’s Google Group membership
  • If they are not a member of any other teams, arrange for the removal of their official email account

Communications

• Liaise with other teams and/or departments as necessary (e.g. if graphics for marketing are needed the team should contact the Marketing Team)
• Monitor the team’s official accounts regularly and aim to respond within 48 hours to anything requiring a reply, delegating within the team as appropriate (e.g. social media, email, Mattermost chats, etc)
• If a public Mattermost chat for the team exists, actively monitor what is happening there and participate in conversations

Election Cycles

• Team leaders’ terms last for one year
• Elections should be held in advance of the term expiring, it is suggested to use the following month long schedule:
  • Announce election and invite people to submit nominations (time limit 1 week)
  • After one week, publish anonymous ballot and send to active team members (time limit 1 week)
  • After one week, voting results are announced, and handover period begins (time limit 2 weeks)
  • After two weeks, new team leader is officially in place
• Onboarding / Offboarding transition
  • Hand over the role and responsibilities to the newly elected team leader
  • Provide access to the new team leader for any necessary resources, e.g. Mattermost, documents, email addresses, social media accounts etc
  • Ask the new team leader to revoke any permissions to the outgoing team leader that are not granted to team members / contributors

Article 3. Supporting bodies. 

• Assistant Team Leader
• Department Coordinator
  • Assistant Department Coordinator
• Volunteer Engagement Team
• OSM Board of Directors

Article 4. Resources.

• OSM - Teams & Membership 
• Board of Directors Meeting Reports  
• Joomla! Volunteers Portal - Home of the Joomlers! 
• Joomla! Volunteer Engagement Team (VET) Official

Article 5. Order of Precedence. In case of conflict between the provisions of this Policy, the order of precedence for conflict resolution in descending order shall be as follows: 

1. Bylaws, including 
2. amendments; and 
3. the Policies.

This policy has been adopted by the Board of Directors of Open Source Matters, Inc. with the motion #2020-072 on May 21, 2020  and is published under the Policies section of the organization’s website.

Official Policy version

The official version of the policy adopted by the Board of Directors on May 21, 2020.

Download the Official Team Leader Responsibilities Policy (version 1.0)