The Plenum Pattern
This page is a part of Design Patterns.
Its content is derived from the presentation "Building a Hacker Space" by Jens Ohlig and Lars Weiler.
| Sustainability Patterns | Independence Patterns | Regularity Patterns | Conflict Resolution Patterns | Creative Chaos Patterns |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Problem[edit]
You want to resolve internal conflicts, exercise democratic decision-making, and discuss recent issues and future plans.
Implementation[edit]
Have a regular meeting with possibly all members. Have an agenda and set goals. Make people commit themselves to tasks. Write down minutes of the meeting and post them on a mailing list and/or Wiki. Go for the only date that works: once a week. Weird dates like “first full-moon after the third Friday” will never work. Likewise doesn’t every other week or anything similar.
(Note from enki/metalab: every two weeks worked much better for us. having meetings without progress to report or things to discuss is worse than no meeting, because it attracts people who talk and deters people who are action-oriented) (Note from Moem/Hack42: we concur. Bi-weekly meetings are working fine for us.) (Note from myself/i3Detroit: Ditto here, almost. First tuesday: member meeting. Second tuesday: board meeting. Third tuesday: member meeting. Any other tuesdays: nothing.[Update from mtfurlan/i3Detroit as of 2021 we're down to monthly member meetings on the first tuesday and board meetings third tuesday]) (Note from chrstn/dingfabrik: We switched also to 2-week-rythm. But we have Mondaymeetings which can't attend because of my brainbufferoverflow when starting the week. (Note from jabelone/Hackerspace Brisbane: We have general meetings every second Tuesday during our open night. This strikes a good balance of regularity and actually having stuff to vote on etc.)
