About OSM

Department Coordinator Responsibilities Policy

Version 1.0

This document sets out the responsibilities of a Department Coordinator and aims to provide a helpful resource to assist them in their role. Department Coordinators are Board Members of Open Source Matters and have a significant responsibility. 

Article 1. General Responsibilities

  • Be able to give at least 20 hours per week to the project
  • Ability to be available within 24 hours should an urgent matter arise
  • Read and answer emails within 24 hours
  • Follow all Official OSM Policies
  • Follow all approved OSM Motions
  • Uphold all of Joomla’s key values
  • Be able to commit to the role until the next regular period of election for that role, unless an unexpected change in circumstances prevents this
    • Board members and officers who have not completed their initial term should avoid nominating themselves for an alternate board role, unless the call for nominations is extended due to lack of candidates

Article 2. Meetings & Reporting.

  • Attend the bi-weekly Board 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, updates or discussion points from the department’s teams
    • For any significant or critical information, do not wait for the meeting and instead notify the Board immediately
    • Nominate a proxy to vote on your behalf for any motions that take place during a meeting that you cannot attend
    • Communicate with the department’s teams any relevant information from the Board meeting after the minutes have been published
  • Publish quarterly and year-end reports as required by the defined reporting timelines
  • Organise monthly department meetings at a minimum, and bi-weekly meetings where necessary
    • All Team Leaders of the department should attend, Assistant Team Leaders can optionally attend
    • Define a regular schedule for department meetings, taking into account the differing time zones of team leaders 
    • Prepare an agenda at least 7 days in advance of the meeting so that team leaders 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 department’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 meeting attendee’s approval, post them on the reporting section of the department’s profile on the Volunteer Portal within a few days of the meeting
  • Attend team meetings within the department as necessary
  • Record the result of any department or team votes in the Official OSM Department Motion Registry

Article 3. Organisational.

  • Ensure that the department’s profile on the Volunteer Portal is kept up to date with description, Department Leadership members, and contact information
    • Ensure that all department team and working group profiles are kept up to date with description, current members, available roles and contact information
    • Address information must be recorded for all members (only visible to OSM Secretary)
  • Manage the department’s resources and request/arrange access where necessary (including, but not limited to: 1Password, Google Group, Google Drive, Github, social media, Mattermost, email) 
    • All documents, sheets, files, data etc should be kept in the department’s official folder in the Google Drive and never in personal accounts
    • Access to the department’s Google Drive folder should be done via the department Google Group
    • Access to the department’s Google Group must only be provided to CJO email addresses
    • Make sure that the 1Password vaults are up-to-date for the department tools, services and other generic usage, including the details for the functional accounts in the special DC vaults
    • Official policies must always be followed for all resources and tools
    • For each team, ensure that accesses to all resources are kept up to date
  • Appoint an Assistant Department Coordinator, preferably from within the department
  • Make sure that every Assistant Department Coordinator, Team Leader and Assistant Team Leader have signed the NDA
    • For teams that handle sensitive personal information, ensure that all members have signed the NDA
  • Regularly check that all department teams are holding monthly meetings and posting their minutes on the Volunteer Portal 
  • Ensure that all Team Leaders are fulfilling their responsibilities as detailed in the Team Leader Responsibilities Policy
  • Liaise with other teams and departments as necessary to aid the department’s work and goals 
  • Assist the department teams with the Team Leader election processes and any resultant transitions
  • Monitor the meeting attendance and team activity participation levels of members and contributors of the department’s teams, and advise the appropriate Team Leader to discuss the issue with any volunteers whose participation levels are low (a member must attend at least 65% of team meetings in a 6 month period as stated in OSM Board Motion 2019/011)

Article 4. Financial.

  • In collaboration with the Department Leadership, prepare and submit a yearly budget for the department 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)
  • Process budget expenditure requests
  • Assist teams with planning and organising any eventual team sprints or attendance at events where needed

Article 5. Onboarding / Offboarding.

  • Hand over the role and responsibilities to the newly elected Department Coordinator during the transition phase of the election cycle as detailed in the Handover Policy
  • Provide access to the new Department Coordinator for any necessary resources, e.g. OSM email account, Mattermost, Google Drive folders, documents etc
    • For any documents and folders not owned by the OSM email account, transfer ownership to the new Department Coordinator
    • 1Password access is granted via personal accounts so that current and incoming Department Coordinator will both have access the resources during the transition period 
  • Once the transition period is complete, ask the new Department Coordinator to revoke any permissions to the outgoing Department Coordinator and to cycle the passwords on any role-based accounts

Article 6. Order of Precedence. In case of conflict between provisions of this Policy, the order of precedence for conflict resolution in descending order shall be as follows: (i) Bylaws, including amendments; (ii) and (iii) the Policies.

 

This policy has been adopted by the Board of Directors of Open Source Matters, Inc. with the motion #2020-119  on September 10, 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 September 10, 2020.

pdfDownload the Official Policy regarding Department Coordinator Responsibilities (version 1.0)

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