Getting Started with Guidelines + Goals

This exercise will walk you through some of the steps for setting goals for your organization and aligning them with community guidelines.

For beginners

Format

This exercise is part group brainstorm, part writing, best done in person with a group or online.

Materials

  • Sticky Notes, Pen & Paper (if in person)
  • Collaborative document (ie., etherpad, Google docs) (if online)

Introduction

Community Guidelines are often best developed through collaborative effort with community members. In tandem with a Code of Conduct, they can help align the broader objectives of a collective with some norms for inclusion and community development in perpetuity.

Right now, we'll prototype guidelines for your current cohort community of fellows, and you can re-use them or do the same exercise for your own communities.

Steps to Complete

As with codes of conduct, guidelines for your community and team can help provide focus and boundaries for group interaction and communication. Let's develop some for your fellowship cohort, ratify and observe how effective they are throughout this week.

  1. Brainstorm

    Start by reflecting on the following sections as a small group. Transfer responses to post-its. Try to give yourselves 2-3 minutes per section.

    • Collaborative + Community Goals

      Think about the words and values you developed in the code of conduct exercise. Which of these informs some community goals for your cohort that you might articulate here? Short phrases will suffice. Document one or two main ones on post-its.

      Examples: How do you see your cohort relationship growing? What assets would you like to be able to share with your (new or current) community from your cohort? What domains, industries, or disciplines would you like to collaborate with through your future work?

    • Norms

      Adapt the desirable and undesirable behaviors from the previous exercise to list some norms you'd like to enforce. Document one or two main ones on post-its.

      Examples: Think about how you might enforce these behaviors. How can you communicate them simply, and revisit them often? How might they guide communications on Trellis?

    • Educational + Growth Goals

      What skills will you develop throughout your fellowship and in your role, and how can you transfer or build skills in your community. Document one or two main ones on post-its.

      Examples: Provide professional development training for community members, survey them and ask what they can teach eachother, and what they can learn from the group.

  2. Collect + Consider

    Group the post-its into piles based on the three question buckets above. Try to assemble them in a meaningful order, and think about how you might sync them with your codes of conduct, or possibly merge the two. Discuss with your group.

  3. Discuss + Document

    Bring the conversation to the larger group, highlighting one or two salient guidelines from your group discussion. From this we'll return to our Google Doc, and draft a set of community guidelines from your post-its, for this week. Once recorded, you'll be invited to "sign" the document. We'll revisit at the end of the week.

Glossary

Code of conduct

a set of rules outlining the social norms and rules and responsibilities of, or proper practices for, an individual, party or organization.

Norms

short for "normal," a standard or pattern, especially of social behavior, that is typical or expected of a group.

Follow-up Resources & Materials