diff --git a/posts/2024-08-26-council-survey.md b/posts/2024-08-26-council-survey.md new file mode 100644 index 000000000..870fe63e2 --- /dev/null +++ b/posts/2024-08-26-council-survey.md @@ -0,0 +1,122 @@ +--- +layout: post +title: "2024 Leadership Council Survey" +author: The Leadership Council +--- + +One of the responsibilities of the [leadership council](https://www.rust-lang.org/governance/teams/leadership-council), +formed by [RFC 3392], is to solicit feedback on a yearly basis from the Project +on how we are performing our duties. + +> Each year, the Council must solicit feedback on whether the Council is +> serving its purpose effectively from all willing and able Project members and +> openly discuss this feedback in a forum that allows and encourages active +> participation from all Project members. To do so, the Council and other +> Project members consult the high-level duties, expectations, and constraints +> listed in this RFC and any subsequent revisions thereof to determine if the +> Council is meeting its duties and obligations. + +This is the council's first year, so we are still figuring out the best way to +do this. For this year, a short survey was sent out to all@ on June 24th, 2024, +ran for two weeks, and we are now presenting aggregated results from the +survey. Raw responses will not be shared beyond the leadership council, but the +results below reflect sentiments shared in response to each question. We invite +feedback and suggestions on actions to take on Zulip or through direct +communication to council members. + +We want to thank everyone for their feedback! It has been very valuable to hear +what people are thinking. As always, if you have thoughts or concerns, please +reach out to your council representative any time. + +## Survey results + +We received 53 responses to the survey, representing roughly a 32% response +rate (out of 163 current recipients of all@). + +### Do you feel that the Rust Leadership Council is serving its purpose effectively? + +| Option | Response count +|-------------------|--------------- +| Strongly agree | 1 +| Agree | 18 +| Unsure | 30 +| Disagree | 4 +| Strongly disagree | 0 + +### I am aware of the role that the Leadership Council plays in the governance of the Rust Project. + +| Option | Response count +|-------------------|--------------- +| Strongly agree | 9 +| Agree | 20 +| Unsure | 14 +| Disagree | 7 +| Strongly disagree | 3 + +### The Rust Project has a solid foundation of Project governance. + +| Option | Response count +|-------------------|--------------- +| Strongly agree | 3 +| Agree | 16 +| Unsure | 20 +| Disagree | 11 +| Strongly disagree | 3 + +### Areas that are going well + +For the rest of the questions we group responses into rough categories. The +number of those responses is also provided; note that some responses may have +fallen into more than one of these categories. + +* (5) Less drama +* (5) More public operations +* (5) Lack of clarity / knowledge about what it does + * It's not obvious why this is a "going well" from the responses, but it was + given in response to this question. +* (4) General/inspecific positivity. +* (2) Improved Foundation/project relations +* (2) Funding travel/get-togethers of team members +* (1) Clear representation of members of the Project +* (1) Turnover while retaining members + +### Areas that are not going well + +* (15) Knowing what the council is doing +* (3) Not enough delegation of decisions +* (2) Finding people interested in being on the council / helping the council +* (1) What is the role of the project directors? Are they redundant given the council? +* (2) Too conservative in trying things / decisions/progress is made too slowly. +* (1) Worry over Foundation not trusting Project + +Suggestions for things to do in the responses: + +* (2) Addressing burnout +* (2) More social time between teams +* (2) More communication/accountability with/for the Foundation +* (2) Hiring people, particularly for non-technical roles +* (1) Helping expand the moderation team +* (1) Resolving the launching pad issues, e.g., through "Rust Society" work +* (1) Product management for language/compiler/libraries + +## Takeaways for future surveys + +* We should structure the survey to specifically ask about high-level duties + and/or enumerate areas of interest (e.g., numeric responses on key questions +like openness and effectiveness) +* Consider linking published material/writing 1-year retrospective and that + being linked from the survey as pre-reading. +* We should disambiguate between neutral and "not enough information/knowledge + to answer" responses in multiple choice response answers. + +## Proposed action items + +We don't have any concrete proposed actions at this time, though are interested +in finding ways to have more visilibity for council activities, as that seems +to be one of the key problems called out across all of the questions asked. How +exactly to achieve this remains unclear though. + +As mentioned earlier, we welcome input from the community on suggestions for +both improving this process and for actions to change how the council operates. + +[RFC 3392]: https://rust-lang.github.io/rfcs/3392-leadership-council.html