News — 19 January, 2022

Expressions of Interest - Tasking Manager Collective Guide (volunteer)

hot_tech is looking for someone to guide the direction of Tasking Manager (TM) and represent the voice of the TM Collective. Could it be you?

As many of you know, over the last 6 months or so, we have been reimagining what the future of the Tasking Manager could look like for HOT and the wider Humanitairan and OSM communities.

We have taken the time to reflect and consult in an effort to create a new model for Tasking Manager that aspires to get the Tasking Manager back to its community software roots. You can read about the ‘TM Tomorrow’ here > to get up to speed and find (or contribute) questions and answers you may also have.

As the next step in the TM Tomorrow journey, we are now looking for an individual who would like to volunteer as a community caretaker for the Tasking Manager and are open to anyone who would like to express their interest in this position. You can read the full position description here >

Position description tldr;

• Expected time commitment is about 5 hours a week

• Responsibilities include, project direction, roadmaps and issue prioritisation

• Will be supported by TM Maintainers, hot_tech collective facilitator, and hot_tech in general

A few questions that have arisen since we first started talking about this idea that may be helpful to those considering expressing their interest (or feedback).

Q: Why are you doing this? The short answer to this is to reduce our control and reignite the collective. HOT recognises its role in taking primary control for the project in recent years and the effects of this (and recognise those effects haven’t always been positive). While this did allow us to move things forward, we also recognise our control has reduced engagement of our collective of contributors, stakeholders and users. Moving forward, we want to reduce HOT’s control of the project and shift power back into the collective, where HOT serves and supports the collective, rather than substituting it.

Q: What is a ‘collective guide’? The Collective Guide will be an individual who fundamentally believes in the vision and value of the Tasking Manager project to improve organised mapping for humanitarian and sustainable development purposes. The Collective Guide will engage with and represent the collective of contributors, users and stakeholders. The Collective Guide will represent the collective’s voice for project direction, product roadmaps, issue prioritisation, feature and enhancement requests and design decisions.

Q: Why is this a volunteer position? This is a good question and one we are open to having our minds changed. This has been initially imagined as a volunteer position due to feedback of how compensation can influence project direction. We would love to see the Guide be a voice of the Collective and their agenda, not just one that’s been financially incentivised by HOT. However, I do want to openly recognise that volunteering requires time, capacity and resources. We don’t want constraints on an individual’s time, capacity and resources to inhibit them from applying or holding this position. If there is a way that we can maintain impartiality and accommodate considerations of equitable participation then we are open to exploring that also.

Q: How will the person be selected? We will have a panel of people made up of contributors, users and stakeholders that will select the successful individual. We want to make sure that a good cross section of representatives from the collective influence the decision and not just the hot_tech team.

If you would like to express your interest and nominate yourself for this role, please reach out to me (Bo - bo.percival@hotosm.org or through the HOT slack).