Getting Done What Needs To Be Done
What One Community is working on right now is arguably some of the most important developmental aspects of the entire project. We are a dedicated, organized, and professional team contributing weekly to an ever-evolving action list and seeking others excited to create this with us. This page is about the minimum time investment anyone thinking about joining the Pioneer Team can expect to contribute (6-10 hours a week) and how we use a results-based monitoring and evaluation process to maintain our productivity, efficiency, and as an ongoing foundation for collaborative team leadership skills development. The three sections of this page are:
- How this results based system is foundational to this phase of creation
- What makes up the minimum time investment expectations for being a Pioneer
- How we use “tangible contribution” to maintain focus and productivity on our priorities
RELATED PAGES
BECOMING A COMMUNITY PIONEER ● ONE COMMUNITY NOW ● HELPING ON THE PROPERTY
IMPORTANCE TO THIS PHASE OF CREATION
Creating historic global change and building a sustainable civilization from the ground up requires a very special kind of person combined with a significant level of dedication, problem-solving skills, and responsibility. Much like the Pioneers of history must have realized when they were preparing to venture forward into uncharted territory, a fiercely positive attitude focused on what is possible and a genuine enjoyment of the process of engaging the unknown is very helpful.
One Community is an open source project-launch blueprinting organization engaging the most significant global challenges of our generation. We feel the stage we are in right now is the one that requires the most perseverance, dedication, and ultimately faith that we can and will succeed. We also believe the stakes couldn’t be higher and that if the answers were already as compelling, implementable, and readily available as we are working to make them, these problems would already be well on their way to resolution or they wouldn’t even exist anymore. Because we feel what we are creating is so important to the entire human organism, and because the tasks we are engaging are so diverse, multifaceted, and complex, we have created our results-based monitoring and evaluation system to help each other maintain our focus and continually improve our effectiveness.
MINIMUM EXPECTATIONS FOR PIONEERS
We call contributing to specific action items that move us forward “tangible contribution.” Because we are currently organizing and working remotely on the diverse tasks of One Community (see the Updates Page for a list), and because our Pioneers have a large variety of other responsibilities that occupy their time too, the current minimum commitment to accomplishing and logging “tangible contribution” is 4 hours per person per week. This is not to say team members are only contributing 4 hours per week to the project, but rather that a minimum of 4 “tangible hours” are logged and tracked for each individual on the team to make sure that we continue to maintain our focus on the most essential components to our success and the specific action items needed to complete them.
Having logged and tracked our time as a team for over a year, the minimum weekly total contribution for the Pioneer Team Members is around 6-10 hours and we’ve come to appreciate the value of separately monitoring our tangible contribution as a method of accountability, efficiency, and screening for the solid work ethic that is essential to the success of our strategy for global transformation. It has also been very effective in gathering data on individual effectiveness for someone like Jae who contributes anywhere from 40-60 hours each week working on One Community.
“TANGIBLE CONTRIBUTION” AND PRODUCTIVITY
Results-based monitoring and evaluation is primarily about keeping people’s energy high and maintaining One Community momentum by working together to:
- Identify and focus on top priorities
- Break large tasks into smaller tasks (click here for template)
- Contribute a minimum of 4 hours each to the completion of these tasks
- Help where we see help needed, and celebrate our progress as a group
- Log our specific activity and results (including GoogleDoc links to data) in support of open source project-launch blueprinting and so everyone on the team, now and in the future, can see and access all the information related to our constantly evolving projects
Ultimately we have seen that if we consistently making tangible contributions that move us in the direction we want to go, even if it is as little as just 4 hours a week, we will not only arrive at our destination but astound ourselves at what we are able to accomplish.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS
Q: I could contribute 10 hours a week or so but I’m not sure if I should join now or later?
You should join later. We desire to work with people that are specifically excited to be a part of this formative stage of One Community and contribute to the the diversity of tasks we are currently working on. If you aren’t sure if you are ready, you probably aren’t.
Q: What counts as Tangible Contribution?
Action Items agreed upon by Project Teams or Jae. These action items will be things that produce tangible and measurable forward movement for the benefit of the whole team and project. Anything that is tangible will have a visible result for everyone to see in the form of a GoogleDoc, completed task like a webpage or keyword research, etc.
Q: What if a person doesn’t know what to do?
In the spirit of a “how can I help” culture we are creating, and the support of developing our team leadership skills, we put the responsibility of asking how and where help is needed in the hands of the individual and have Welcome Team Facilitators, Project Team Facilitators and Jae available for guidance.
Q: What if a person doesn’t want to do any of the things suggested?
We suggest a person propose something that they do want to do to a Project Team or Jae for discussion.
Q: How does time get logged?
Our time is logged in a web-based application designed specifically for this purpose. When logging activity items are specifically designated as “tangible” or “intangible” and then the following is included:
- How much time was invested
- A little detail about what was accomplished
- A link to a GoogleDoc collaborative space or other tangible record of what was done
Q: What do people do if they are going to be gone for a week?
They check in with their fellow team members to make sure taking time off will not disrupt any tasks they are responsible for and then do extra time in advance to “bank time” for the time they intend to be gone.
Q: What does a person do if they didn’t get their hours done one week?
We have the PEACE Agreement designed for support in these situations and a person’s Welcome Team Facilitator is the person to discuss making up missed hours with.
Q: Where did the choice for “4 hours” come from?
Four hours was an amount that was considered doable in one evening so people with extremely busy lives could still be Pioneers able to meet the expectations of this project until we all “quit our day jobs” and move to the property to create One Community fulltime as a team.
Q: What if a person wanted to do more than 4 hours of tangible contribution?
That is fantastic and most people do. Jae puts in 40-60 hours a week on this project and the more we each do to help move everything forward by completing the tangible action items, the faster we ALL achieve our goals.
Q: How is this system maintained and evolved?
This system is maintained by the clear dedicated and commitment of each individual to this project and our shared values and goals. It is evolved through a monthly 2-way review process outlined on our Performance Management Template Page.
