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- Executive Heads: The public face, managers and the decision makers.
- Rest -
- Core Team Members: Freshers batch. (< 1 year of experience)
- Advisors: People who have been an Executive member in the past and are still on the campus.
- Alumni: People who have graduated but were Executives when on campus.
Permanent membership of KOSS mandates serving one year as an Executive. But if advisors mutually agree that any particular human shouldn't be advisor due to several reasons like fundamentals which includes work ethics and style(for example aristocratic), wrong inheritance of values(how things work, why things are the way they are etc) of being in KOSS, what values they are imparting/spreading to their junior and their batchmate and how much they are aligned with KOSS work culture or their contribution as Executive, then they can remove that particular human. Ref ISSUE-16
Members join KOSS in their first year as Core Team members. They spend their time learning technologies, as well as working on raising the awareness of Open Source. At the end of their second year, they take up the role of Executive Heads and Executive Members after a rigorous Governance Review Week. The former Executive Heads and Advisors decide whether a CTM will become an Executive Head or an Executive Member. (See Onboarding/Offboarding). After serving another year, they pass on the baton to the next batch, and they become Advisors while staying on the campus. They actively take part in the discussions, events, and seminars as per their skills and expertise. They graduate to become KOSS Alumni, the role of which is undecided yet.
We recruit UG 1st years in the team, preferably after they have spent one semester on the campus. We can also recruit any 2nd year in their third semester, based on recommendations by the members.
In the spring semester of Core Team members, they go through a Governance week discussion and finally become the new Executives (Heads and Members). Former Executives should carefully offboard members who are not a good fit for the upcoming Executive batch. Every single individual should have a net positive impact on the team. See Onboarding/Offboarding for more detail.
Members in their late second and early third year
Executive Heads are de facto managers of KOSS. They have complete authority to make decisions and take up initiatives. They manage KOSS public relations on Emails and Social Media. Executive Heads are responsible for inducting new members as well as pruning anyone’s membership as they unanimously decide. In short, Executive Heads are KOSS.
Executive Heads decide the timeline of KOSS. They call the full-body general meetings. Executive Heads lead all the meetings and events unless they explicitly request anyone else to do so.
All of KOSS meetings have to be conducted in the knowledge of an Executive Head. Executive Heads have to take steps to prevent any abuse of power or harassment.
Executive Heads regularly consult with the Advisors. They must do it before introducing any change with high impact.
They approve Pull Requests to https://github.com/kossiitkgp/accounts.
Executive Members do not take the lead but have experience in working with KOSS and the Executive Heads. Their primary objectives are:
Involving Core Team members through projects/hackathons to improve their skillsSupporting Executive Heads when necessary
They act as resources of KOSS. They offer their suggestions constantly throughout the year.
They do not make any decision for KOSS without consulting the Executive Heads, or unless told to do so.
We had a physical meeting in Kgp campus regarding this as well. It was mutually agreed that this should be removed. Reasons are mentioned in ISSUE-15
Members in their late first and early second year
Core Team members always represent the next generation of KOSS and FOSS culture at IIT Kharagpur. They actively volunteer to learn and conduct events, workshops, classes, etc. CTMs also learn how to work in a team. “Community is more important than Code,” and the core team should take this seriously.
At the end of the session, there is a week-long discussion with the Core Team members where they put their ideas forward on topics such as ‘Events,’ ‘Community Standards,’ ‘New hires,’ ‘Meetings and Communications’, etc. After these discussions, the former Executive Heads select the new Executive Heads and Executive Members and terminate the membership of people who are not a cultural fit to work with the Executives.
Members who have been an Executive before and are still on campus. Late third year onwards.
Advisors, in general, have more technical experience. They have seen a lot of KOSS, and the members should use their experience as a resource. They actively suggest better technologies to be used in KOSS. They also make sure the Executive Heads are not over-prioritizing anything and are relaxed. They continuously take updates from the Executive Heads about what is going in KOSS. They intervene when asked by an Executive to resolve any conflict. They can also lead meetings if Executive Heads do not object.
One of the Advisors acts as the Treasurer of KOSS and oversees the finances. See Accounts.
“Members who have graduated from KGP”
The role has no formal duties, as of now.
- Do not miss a meeting unless extremely required (health or out of station). Your lack of involvement will psychologically disolve your responsibilities. Schedule meetings according to the availability of all the Executive Heads.
- Be in sync among yourselves. Frequently meet with each other. You will build an amazing friendship with this, which will remain beyond KOSS.
- Respect time of your fellow Executives and Juniors. Do not slack off.
- Always have a lump-sum timeline for events and internal workshops for a particular semester (or year). Core Team members are an essential part of overall execution, so not having a timeline puts them at blindside, and they cannot manage their time.
- Your Core Team Members are your KGP juniors as well. Make sure they prioritize their mental and physical health.
- Follow "Survival first" rule. You need to ensure that your Core Team members have learnt enough to continue in KOSS. You can prioritize this over conducting a fancy workshop.
- Make sure KOSS is a sexually and emotionally non-hostile place to work. Importance of this point is definitely not determined by where it is placed.
- Build strong connections with your Core Team members. Have regular 1:1s. Prefer Meetings and Calls over Slack and Email.
- Keep your Executive Members as involved as possible.
Give Executive Heads their freedom. Do not interrupt or hinder their momentum of doing things.Offer suggestions whenever you feel like it.Come to meetings. Build relations with Core Team Members. Be active on Slack.
- We believe in self-motivation and a sense of ownership. Try to take initiatives and tasks on your own.
- Make sure you are active within the community. Reach out to your batchmates and seniors once in a while. Discuss stuff with people, or you might end up losing interest.
- Communication skills are vital for any line of work. Practice public speaking and teaching as often as possible. Try to get over your stage fear (if you have one).
- There will always be people who do certain things better than you in one or more aspect. Don’t get intimidated by this. Instead, try to get the most of out it. Knowledge-sharing is how we as individuals grow.
Dear fellow advisors,
It’s very easy to be the grumpy old fellows pointing out mistakes in others’ work and it’s quite tempting since our brain mostly favors short-term rewards. The real challenge is to enable people to improve and change themselves as well as the organization. Hiring the right people and steering them in a good direction should be the aim of an advisor.
While the Execs are mostly involved in doing a lot of ground work, advisors can really think about the overall organization and how they can improve it (since we aren’t caught up in day to day shit).
(Bauva’s Theory) Enablers vs Disablers: Enablers are the people that enable an organization to do good while disablers are exactly the opposite. Enablers are the people who can with their energy and attitude allow more people to collaborate more productively. Enablers trust the people they recruit to do their job (this has got to do a lot with having hope and faith that we have the right strategy for recruiting since without it it’s impossible to have that confidence) and teach them. Disablers don’t trust the people they recruit and curse them for their mistakes (realize that everyone makes mistakes, and it’s more important that you learn from them). An advisor should remember that every interaction is important and after you have “enabled” someone, you have set them on a good path and vice versa.
Advisors should aim for being enablers in KOSS and avoid being disablers.
What an advisor should aim for:
- Trust the team that you have hand-picked (the most important one)
- Motivate the team
- Create reliable systems and process (like
docsormistakesrepo) that reduce systematic errors - Provide valuable experiences
- Asking Execs the reason behind their actions and thorough cross-questioning
- Help people learn
- Set the culture
- Set guidelines and goals
- Appreciate and shower praises for the good work
It’s also important to remember how we (advisors) felt when we were in our 2nd and 3rd years. Campus life is really hard and it takes a toll on the best of us. Remember that Execs & CTM have their own life with their own problems which they want to solve to achieve their own goals. There are many things obvious for us right now and we know what to focus on and what to not focus on. So the next time, if some junior comes up to you and says, “Kal test/assignment/lab hai, toh kaam nahi hoga” don’t starting whining about how you didn’t give a fuck about it when you were young and wild (either they won’t care or they will mistake you for being reckless). “Humare bhi dusra kaam hota hai per phir bhi hum kaam karte hai” isn’t exactly the sentence that would motivate someone. Instead try to find a solution where you solve his/her issue along without hampering the work to be done.