Task force/Roles

Roles and Responsibilities

Within the context of each task force, the group may find it advantageous to use one or more of the below sets of roles/responsibilities.

Each task force must select:

• A group facilitator: The facilitator will be responsible for creating an atmosphere of mutual respect and for seeing that the weekly status reports are posted by Saturday 23:59 UTC. (Note: it's not required that the facilitator be the one to complete the weekly status report, just that s/he coordinate and see that it is done.) The facilitator should be comfortable helping the group to move beyond sticking points in discussion in an atmosphere of tolerance and respect.

Each task force may select the following:

• A group whip: The whip will be responsible for the timekeeping and timeline aspects of the work. S/he will provide the "broad view" of the work to be accomplished and the dates by which it is due, including internal project calendars. S/he will work with task force members to see that all are giving a similar amount to the process and no one is being asked to do the majority of the work alone. The whip will work with the facilitator to schedule appropriate discussion time and hold the group accountable for its scheduling decisions. The whip will also be responsible to proactively notify Philippe of any delays or potential delays in meeting targets.

• A user advocate: The user advocate has the unique challenge of advocating on behalf of users s/he has never met. The changing constituencies of the projects will always be at the forefront of this task force member's mind. S/he will constantly consider user experiences in many paths: reader, casual editor, consistent editor, wikignome, etc. It is the role of this person to be sure that those not physically present on the task force have a voice in the process.

• A support liaison: It will be the role of the support liason to interface with Philippe to request whatever support or assistance the Foundation or the projects can provide the task force. The support liaison may aid in locating resources for this purpose, or may simply pass the request along: every circumstance will be different. This person will be detail oriented and thorough.

• A recording secretary: The recording secretary is responsible for gathering the accumulated work product and seeing to it that the end result is accurate, complete, and fairly represents the views of those who contributed to it, whether they were assigned to the task force by the strategy task force selection committee or self-selected because of personal interest. This person will not be shy about asking for documentation, and will provide referenced and complete copies of all deliverable documents.

• Other roles: These roles are by no means mandatory, nor are they complete. Some task forces will use only a facilitator; others will find a need for several defined roles. Create or deprecate roles as you see the need!