Cooperation & coordination

["James Purchase" <jppurchase@rogers.com>]

Recently, there were a number of posts concerning cooperation between the
Convention, the Contest, and TAG. I won't repost that information since it
should be fresh in everyone's mind. I would like to offer my "take" on what
I read. I don't mean in any of this to criticize anyone personally for
anything they may have done or not done or how they went about their tasks -
it appears that everyone has been trying to do their "job" as best they
could. I apologize for the length of this posting - I tend to be verbose at
the best of times. Please bear with me.

In any organization, there are usually a number of "areas" or "functions"
which need to be addressed, each meeting a specific "need" or organizational
"goal". It is quite common for many of the activities necessary to meet one
"need" or "goal" to be similar to or identical to the activities required to
fulfill other "needs" or address other "goals" in other areas of the
organization's sphere of activity. If the organization is structured in such
a way that the "areas" and/or "functions" operate independently and/or
autonomously, this can lead to duplication of effort, redundancy and waste.
When the organization has limited resources, particularly in "person power"
(i.e. in our case volunteers) this can severely limit what can be
accomplished, both by the individual sub-units and by the organization as a
whole - there just aren't enough hands available to do all of the required
tasks. It is quite possible that resources needed by one sub-unit are in the
possession of one of the other sub-units. Unless there is some means of
communication and coordination between the various sub-units, this
information might never be transmitted in a timely enough manner to be
useful.

If the "common elements" carried out by each "sub-unit" (i.e. in our case,
currently, that would be TAG, the Contest and the Convention) are identified
and analyzed, they can quite often be separated out and centralized, and the
needs of each "sub-unit" met by fewer people since there isn't any
duplication of effort. This also leads to greater consistency, both in
approach to the task and to the message delivered to the outside world.

For example, in 2000 both the Contest and the Convention had a "need" to
contact vendors in order to obtain their support for their respective
events. As the self-appointed Contest Coordinator at the time, I knew what
had to be done to meet the needs of my event - I had to identify and contact
as many potential Prize Donors as possible, and attempt to persuade them to
give us donations of product which we could use as Prizes in the Contest.
With the help of my "sub-unit" volunteers, I decided upon the "benefit" we
could offer to the vendors - recognition and display of their donation on
the web site. Due to the fact that I was physically located in Canada, we
made arrangements for donations of physical product to be shipped to one
central location in the United States, where we had a volunteer able and
willing to receive, store safely and then re-ship the items to the winners
of the Contest. There were problems - a number of companies shipped physical
product to me here in Canada, so we actually had items in two sites and two
people were required to deal with the problems of storage and shipping.
Notwithstanding the problems, the system worked well for us, although
improvements in our procedures could certainly be undertaken in future
years.

Totally unknown to me (at the time), the Convention also had a need to
contact vendors, looking for much the same things as the Contest was
seeking. It was purely a timing issue that in many cases, I had contacted
many of the vendors involved before Charlene, and they had already made
their donation "to the AGA". This caused confusion on the part of the
vendors (several of whom contacted me wondering what was going on), and made
Charlene's job more difficult.

Last year, as I understand it, there was some limited cooperation in this
area. The Convention volunteers handled the vendor contact and the Contest
volunteer who had received, stored and then shipped Contest Prizes assumed
that task once again. How effective last year's vendor contact was in
comparison to the year before is unknown to me at this point in time.

More recently, TAG has identified a "need" to contact vendors. Their purpose
is to sell advertising space in a revamped TAG. I suspect that many of the
companies they need to contact are the same companies that both the Contest
and the Convention had been dealing with in the past. The main difference
would be that the individuals or departments within the vendor companies
might be different and the message needed to be conveyed would obviously be
different. It is my understanding that there is some difficulty being
experienced in this effort. I'm also quite sure that the underlying reasons
for any difficulty can be identified and rectified and the "needs" of that
sub-unit can be met.

One issue which has come up in several places is that when someone is given
a task, they quite often go off and attempt it in isolation. Any
difficulties or problems they might be experiencing might not become known
until it is too late to easily rectify.  There should be some sort of
monitoring and/or reporting mechanism in place where task progress can be
recorded and monitored, and where difficulties can be reported. If this is
made public to the membership, at least in some limited way or in summary
form, perhaps help or assistance can be offered from another area or person
before it becomes a real problem.

Having specific "lists" set up and available (such as aga-member and
aga-contest) is a great way to keep everyone working on a project aware of
what is going on. But is important that such facilities are actually used.

I have seen numerous questions as to the existence and/or whereabouts of a
master list of vendors which have been contacted in the past, and the
results of each such contact. Nobody seems to know if such a list exists, or
if it does, who has it. In 2000, I had developed a spreadsheet to keep track
of the companies I was making contact with and in which I recorded details I
felt necessary at the time to keep track of the donations which the various
companies might make. I made sure that a copy of that spreadsheet was
regularly forwarded to Erik Olson for archiving, in the event that either my
copy got trashed or something happened to me (I mean, I could get hit by a
bus). Without some backup, the failure of one link could have crippled the
whole operation. Erik has sent me a copy of that spreadsheet file. At this
point in time, I don't know if it was used last year, or if it was updated
with the results of the contacts made last year and the results of each of
those contacts.

Similarly, I assume that there is (or there should be) some sort of list of
contacts for TAG advertising.

I am more than willing to re-work that original spreadsheet and take input
from other people on how it could be modified to suit EVERYONE'S needs (or,
alternatively, if someone feels that they are handier with the software than
I am, I'm willing to work with them on the task). I have access to a broad
range of software - Microsoft Office 2000 (Excel and Access), WordPerfect
Office 2002 (Quattro Pro and Paradox). I think that a spreadsheet might be
better for our purpose than a real database as cross platform issues aren't
such a problem and more people have access to spreadsheet software than
"real" database software.

Public relations and contact with the "outside world" is one thing needed by
all three areas (i.e. TAG, the Contest and the Convention). The message
required to be conveyed might be slightly different in each case and the
individuals and or departments which must be contacted might be different.
In each case, the organization is being presented to the world and it is (in
my view) vital that this presentation be done consistently and
professionally. If this "function" is pulled out from each sub-unit and
centralized, the process can be accomplished more efficiently and the needs
of each sub-unit can be balanced and met while keeping in mind the greater
needs of the organization as a whole. No one sub-unit can grab the greater
share of the pie at the expense of any other sub-unit which might be
operating in a different manner.

Again, I'm willing to help with folks from the other projects or areas to
design a common "message" which we should be presenting to the world and how
that message can be tailored to suit the individual project's needs.

I also think that in any such "centralization", while someone might be
placed nominally "in charge", there should be no ONE person who gets to keep
all of the "cards". It HAS to be done co-operatively and there HAS to be
good communication between the various players. These aren't the sorts of
things that can be handled by a loner working in private. Should anything
happen to that person or to the information they hold, the entire
organization could be crippled. Some sort or set of standardized procedures
should be developed (i.e. database/spreadsheet of contacts and results),
maintained and regularly archived to ensure that re-invention of the wheel
is not required over and over again. The maintenance, updating and regular
archiving of such data is vital.

I am aware of, and sensitive to the fact that any such "listing" of contacts
is potentially quite valuable and access to it must be carefully managed. I
recall that during my work running the Contest in 2000, I was passed a
"contact list" which had been developed by a club in the U.S. It was
ultimately of little use to me as the sorts of contacts listed in it were
not the sort I was necessarily wanting to get in touch with, but there was
information in it which had taken a lot of time and trouble to compile.

Internal communication among the various sub-units should also be improved.
They should each know, at least in general terms, what the other is doing
and where they stand in relation to achieving their goals.

I think that what is urgently and immediately required is for the principal
players in this (the AGA, TAG, the Contest and the Convention) must sit down
and do the following:

1. define the exact function and purpose of each sub-unit and how it relates
to the goals of the organization as a whole;
2. identify areas of mutual interest and concern which could best be handled
cooperatively;
3. separate out and segregate those functions common to all sub-units to
avoid duplication of effort and ensure consistency of approach and delivery;
4. design and implement policies and procedures to ensure that the needs of
all sub-units and the overall needs of the organization are met in the most
efficient manner possible;
5. require that all sub-units of the organization, both now and in the
future, give feedback and report, to the Board and through them to the
membership as a whole, on their activities.

I don't see any of this as limiting the independence or scope of either the
organization or any of the sub-units within it. It is meant as a way to get
the maximum benefit from the smallest number of "hands" available to do the
various tasks required.

My twenty five cents worth on the subject anyway.....

James Purchase
Toronto










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