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Like michaelochurch, I think this is interesting and hope it works out. That said, my immediate thought is "what does it take to become one of those core commit

Like michaelochurch, I think this is interesting and hope it works out. That said, my immediate thought is "what does it take to become one of those core committee members?" Read into that what you will ;-) The other part I think worth a cautionary mention is that you appear to use the words management and leadership as though they are the same. They are not. It's a cliché, but it describes the difference well - If there's a team of people clearing a path through the jungle with machetes, the manager's job is to make sure the machetes are sharp, the workers have enough water, and generally that they keep clearing a path. The leader however, climbs a tree and looks around to make sure the jungle is being cleared in the right place. Lastly, you speak of accountability. And yet you do not mention authority. The one cannot exist without the other. I've had accountability in every single management role I've had and never the authority to run the team or project as I saw fit. There's an imbalance there that has always spelt epic fail.

johnkchow 14y ago
I like the clear distinctions you've set between a manager and leader (very well written). I'd like to push this further and claim that a manager in a company has two roles: one that fulfills the business needs of the company (keeping the machetes sharp), and the other to have vision and lead the people (climbing the tree). A good manager has to also be a good leader. The converse isn't always true, and I've seen many "good" managers (from a business sense) get resented by the people by the people they're supposed to manage.
einhverfr 14y ago
Well, in the community basically it is weighted towards early contributions (duh) but typically it is people who countribute well to the project in all levels. The core committee has never had more than six people in it, and currently is down to three. There have been some political issues that have come up with some nominees unfortunately so I won't say the process works perfectly. However those who contribute well tend to get commit privileges and those who contribute to strategy beyond code have tended to become core members most of the time. Also regarding management and leadership.... Management is typically a command and control structure for the leaders. If you have a flat model, leadership becomes something different because you lack that command and control structure, and so does management. Someone gets to make sure the machetes are sharp. Maybe someone else is in charge of water.... But yeah good thoughts. BTW, I don't think flat orgs work everywhere. The companies that seem to be successful are those with a very narrow focus, like Github (building things around Git) and WL Gore, which builds things out of one, very specialized, form of plastic. Flat orgs scale up to any number of employees, but they don't scale up to large numbers of goals. I can't imagine how you'd have a flat org structure at Microsoft. Well I can, but it wouldn't be all that flat and it certainly wouldn't be a single org....

johnkchow 14y ago

I like the clear distinctions you've set between a manager and leader (very well written). I'd like to push this further and claim that a manager in a company has two roles: one that fulfills the business needs of the company (keeping the machetes sharp), and the other to have vision and lead the people (climbing the tree). A good manager has to also be a good leader. The converse isn't always true, and I've seen many "good" managers (from a business sense) get resented by the people by the people they're supposed to manage.

einhverfr 14y ago

Well, in the community basically it is weighted towards early contributions (duh) but typically it is people who countribute well to the project in all levels. The core committee has never had more than six people in it, and currently is down to three. There have been some political issues that have come up with some nominees unfortunately so I won't say the process works perfectly. However those who contribute well tend to get commit privileges and those who contribute to strategy beyond code have tended to become core members most of the time. Also regarding management and leadership.... Management is typically a command and control structure for the leaders. If you have a flat model, leadership becomes something different because you lack that command and control structure, and so does management. Someone gets to make sure the machetes are sharp. Maybe someone else is in charge of water.... But yeah good thoughts. BTW, I don't think flat orgs work everywhere. The companies that seem to be successful are those with a very narrow focus, like Github (building things around Git) and WL Gore, which builds things out of one, very specialized, form of plastic. Flat orgs scale up to any number of employees, but they don't scale up to large numbers of goals. I can't imagine how you'd have a flat org structure at Microsoft. Well I can, but it wouldn't be all that flat and it certainly wouldn't be a single org....