brainstorming a Global Sensemaking Team Charter

We have an agenda item to form a charter for our group. Let's get the discussion going. As I said before, I'm comfortable doing this in a face-to-face session, but never thought of doing it on-line with people I don't know, can't see, can't hear, etc. My preference is to have every bit of the charter created by the group itself. So with that in mind....

Below is one possible outline/template. That's followed by an example which I wrote off the top of my head. That is, I just wanted to convey an idea of what a charter for our group might look like, not commit myself or any of us to those specific thoughts.

Note: This isn't a business plan although it would input to one. It's meant to be a one-pager that guides us at a high level, something that we can rally 'round as a group, point to say "yep, that's us."

Whatever we end up with should be agreed to by consensus and evolve by consensus. It's not a static document.

OUTLINE

Vision (or Purpose): If you had 30 seconds to say explain the purpose of this effort to someone who knows nothing about it (the classic "elevator pitch"), what would you say? Can we find words that are both accurate and inspiring? A one sentence mission statement and no more than three paragraphs of text is a good limit.

Strategy (or Approach): What are the key elements to achieving our purpose? What resources will we use and how will we acquire and/or build them?

Membership: How are people added to the team? How and why are they removed?

Organization: What (if any) specific roles do we have and how are they filled?

Ethos (values & character): What's important about how we interact with each other? With external people and organizations? Are there particular qualities and values we wish to see in our work output and how it will be used?

EXAMPLE

Vision: To enhance the ability of people worldwide to collaborate on solving global wicked problems.

Poverty, climate change, peak oil, population pressure, water shortages, secure food supply, and the decline in biodiversity are examples of global wicked problems as is universal access to potable water, safe food, sanitation, shelter, basic education, and life enhancing work. These kinds of problems are difficult in themselves and interact with each other. The Global Sensemaking Team provides web-based tools enabling people and groups now working on solutions to collaborate with each other in a deeper, more effective way.

Strategy: [Something about exploiting semantic web, existing collaboration tools, Web 2.0 functionality. Maybe something about federating with other groups and approach to funding.]

Membership: Current members are on the Ning site. Any member can invite new members. [No one ever wants to talk about removing members but it's better to have this conversation now rather than later.]

Organization: [The only explicit role I'm aware of is David Price's as maintainer of the Ning site. Be good to have a few words about how explicit roles and relationships will be agreed on when and if the need arises. In general it's good to have some statement about how decisions are made if only to say "by consensus" or "willynilly."]

Ethos: We adhere to the principles of nonviolent communication (see also Wikipedia), chosing to enhance life in word and deed. Our work products are issued with opensource licenses or otherwise made freely available to all. [What about restrictions on users? e.g. GPL vs LGPL. Also don't want to see anyone using our work to, say, help them build weapons, enhance a marketing campaign for SUVs, etc.]

COMMENTS

Think of this as a brainstorming session. Both the structure and content are up for grabs. All ideas are acceptable.