Navigating relationships
in teams and community partnerships
Intros and announcements
Code of Conduct
Code for America believes that anyone attending a Code for America event or participating in our online community should feel safe and be free from harassment.
As such, we expect all attendees to adhere to the Code of Conduct at every Code for America or Code for America Brigade event.��https://brigade.codeforamerica.org/about/code-of-conduct
ReVisioning
From the Network ReVisioning Recommendation:
"We recognize the importance of self-governing capabilities for the Network to support itself and to provide clear pathways for members of our Network to help shape its future…
For decisions that our Network benefits from making together (e.g. adopting governance procedures, selecting locations for important events, weighing in on national actions) we recommend that our yearly Brigade Congress serve as an assembly where key decisions can be made (for both in-person and virtual participants). We will also consult organizations that do this well and pilot new approaches to grassroots governance. "
Announcements
Impact Sprints is kicking off in July!�Sign up to get notified when volunteer signups open up.�https://airtable.com/shrVPsi5C2780jO2G
Code for America is hiring! �https://codeforamerica.org/jobs/�
Overview
Learning Goal�Build understanding around what it takes to give community partnerships the best chance of success.
What will we be covering?
The Jemez Principles
A few recaps
Recap: �Cooperative Communication
Cooperative Contract
Cooperative Communication
Recap: Points of Unity
7-way
11-way
13-way
Recap: Points of Unity
7-way
11-way
13-way
Recap: Points of Unity honor differences & agreement
Groups must decide how and when big agreements and strategies will be revisited.
At the individual level, it usually represents less than the total of what you want to achieve, but:
Take your time. Coalitions are another level of complexity.
[Assume caveats] a list of things that:
Points of unity are used by action groups that:
An agreement with Points of Unity is essential for participation in the group or partnership.
Can be used to connect large networks (150+)
Points of Unity are always explicit information (in contrast to community lore).
Last recap: Group cooperation in this world is a miracle.
Community Partnerships
Selection criteria and asking for 100%
“Asking for 100% of what we want” is shorthand for being honest, direct, and avoiding manipulation, mind-reading or power plays. It supports your autonomy and accountability.
Starting with what you don’t want can help you figure out what you do want. You can also think about your reasons for being involved.
Once those concepts have gelled at the group level, we can decide on boundaries that support our group’s autonomy and accountability within partnerships. Figuring out standard minimums, ideals, and “anti-goals” can help us develop selection criteria that will:
(h/t to Switch)
You can use any voting method. �This is volunteer labor– it can’t be coerced. �Anyone (depending on your setup) can vote, �but minimum amount of labor required.
Criteria | Project option 1 | Project option 2 | Project option 3 |
Fight displacement/ gentrification | 3 agree, 2 maybe | 5 disagree | 5 agree |
Flexible enough timeline | 5 agree | 4 agree, 1 disagree | 4 agree |
Good ratio of trust-to-expectation | 3 agree, 2 disagree | 1 agree, 2 maybe, 2 disagree | 4 agree |
# Willing to work on this | 4 | 1 | 3 |
Power dynamics: Procurement, gifts, & charity
Whenever we do things for each other, there is some kind of power dynamic at play. We can use different metaphors to help in framing and negotiating agreements with community partners.
Procurement is when someone (usually on behalf of an organization or government agency) purchases a product or service from a vendor. Buyer establishes the parameters, vendor makes the product or performs the service. What does that mean for the power dynamic?
What do you think about giving/receiving gifts? What makes a gift? What makes a gift feel good or bad? How does the power dynamic work?
How do you think about charity? How does that power dynamic work?
Resource: “The Gift of It’s Your Problem Now” article: highlighted; direct
What if app developers who have used Free Software and Open Source pick up expectations of a gift economy mentality? Do we see our contributions to partners as gifts?
This gift economy has some aspects which parallel aspects of volunteering and even charity which the culture at large pick up from Catholic, Jewish, Protestant, and other traditional practices. But the gift economy also goes back even further!
Resource: talk by David Graeber, Debt: the First 5000 years
Examine our motivations and reasons for volunteering: where they’re coming from and how they coexist and relate with others’ motivations in our group. This can help us avoid dominating others accidentally.
Conway’s Law: cooperate directly or fork?
Conway’s law: a microscope’s view of a processor tells you a lot about the teams’ structure who created it. How will your group have to change to collaborate—can you imagine what it would be like to embed with the other group’s way of working to a bigger or smaller extent?
Deciding on and building partnerships between groups is not unlike building dependencies �between app components because those are also made by people whose world is changing.
Our collaborations shape us: “Interfaces between components made by different groups of people are the most fragile pieces.” ��Walk with the partners for a while and build confidence if the involved groups can benefit from �some kind of connection. There are so many ways to cooperate:
(original article: highlighted / direct; wikipedia; See also Models of Collaboration in brigade network slides )
Link: Types of relationships
Disciplined conflict and communication
Cleaning up your story
When we get mad at people (who we would otherwise want to have a more cooperative relationship with, we make up stories about why they did what they did.
Those stories can contain a lot of “Pig” for the other person or ourselves:
Pig messages don’t represent the truth. They are binary, black and white, with heavy judgements. The truth is nuanced. Pig is full of cultural indoctrination and fear.
Have a hard times conversation with a trusted friend or coach. Get it all out. Throw a fit, it’s ok to be dramatic.
When you’re ready, come back to observable facts, feelings/emotions, and move from a self-centric, pig-filled story, to a concise, clear, other-centric story. Sometimes we call this “cleaning up our side of the fence.”
People are MUCH more likely to be able to hear a clean story. Then you can clear your held feelings and stories
Navigating requests
Speech acts menu
a. Request
b. Decline
c. Intimate Decline
d. Boundary Practice: Push Away
e. Negotiation and Counter Offers
g. Commit to Commit
h. Bypass
i. Insist
j. Quit
What is your default in negotiation or responding to requests? �Is a change needed?
Try these!
Breakout:
What has worked (and not worked) in your community partnerships?
Community Partnerships
What worked?
What didn’t?
Body break
Report out
Brigade Challenge
To get more help, coaching, or strategize your way out of frustration and into cooperative leadership, sign up for office hours with me by messaging me on Slack (or emailing me at sierra.ramirez.au@gmail.com).
Discussion �and Q&A
Invitation: Appreciations practice
“I have an appreciation for you. Are you willing to hear it?”
Appreciations are units of power.
Even small ones are bigger than you think.
It’s ok if it’s hard or awkward!
Let’s try it once or twice, and then we can do �an full version after discussion/Q&A.
Resources
Read the full Jemez principles document
Points of Unity CommunityWiki page, by Lion Kimbro
“The Gift of It’s Your Problem Now” article: highlighted; direct
Resource: talk by David Graeber, Debt: the First 5000 years
Embracing Conway’s Law: highlighted / direct; wikipedia;
See also Models of Collaboration in brigade network slides
Last session:
The Other Side of Power by Claude Steiner
Julia Kelliher's chapters on Power & Oppression & Transactional Power from Access to Power
Nancy Shanteau on: