[NCUC Finance] FW: Toronto event

[Tapani Tarvainen]

Hi Milton,

Looks like I am having difficulties in expressing myself clearly.
You have read things between my lines that weren't intended -
my apologies for any misunderstandings.

On Feb 07 23:54, Milton L Mueller (mueller at syr.edu) wrote:

> If you want me to follow up, can you clarify the specific concerns
> you have and the reasons for those concerns?

I am concerned about our poor institutional memory.

I would want things to be managed in such a way that even if
the entire EC were to disappear at once in a plane crash,
our successors would be able to pick up where they left off
without having to start everything from scratch.

More modestly, I would like new EC members in the future to
have an easier job in finding out how things work than
I'm having now.

I am not accusing anyone of any abuses in the past.

I know very well how hard it is to manage documentation
when you are busy doing things of substance.
I realize you all have just been too busy in the past
to build pretty paper trails of everything.
But I'm not trying to make things harder for you,
on the contrary: I'm trying to help.

I know I'm way behind you in substantive policy issues, and
will probably remain that way for a long time, maybe forever.

But I have some experience in running organizations.
And I know that while it takes some work to get
processes running smoothly, it pays off in the long run.
In particular, it would free you to spend your time
in doing the really important stuff.

This is not the first time I've stumbled on a volunteer-driven 
organization that's slowly grown to the point where it becomes
necessary to revamp processes, not because they are bad as such,
but simply because they don't scale.

And that's what I'm trying to do: to build processes that
scale and will carry NCUC on during the (hopefully)
expected period of growth. It will have to be done
eventually anyway, and it is easier sooner than later.

To that end I need to understand how things have been
working in the past.

Building new processes cannot be done from nothing.
They need to be built on history, to create continuity.
Documenting the past is essential.

That is why I keep asking these questions.
Not to air dirty laundry or to assign blame,
but to better prepare us for the future.

I understand answering may feel like waste of time,
but it will pay off in the end.

> If you tell me what you are trying to find out it will be easier to
> answer you.

Simple: I want to find out everything NCUC and it's EC in
particular have ever done. :-)

Or at least everything that's been documented over
the last year to start with.

I've been planning to build us e-tools to manage all our
documents easily, as automatically as possible,
as a side-effect of routine processes as it were.

I'd like to include all historical material as well,
not only for the intrinsic value of documenting our history,
but also to help in designing the system.
So I want to collect as many documents of the past as possible.
Nothing more sinister than that.

Will you help me out?

-- 
Tapani Tarvainen