council Step in the Right Direction

[Darkling 2,041 / 23,430]

Okay I am sure that we have all seen the recent changes within GFL's staff team. Rcool has now stepped down because he no longer has the time to put to GFL anymore. This has put us one man down and means we need to actually get the CA team back on track and working towards the same goals.

 

I know that @Roy has spoke to most of the trusted team about the changes we are planning for the CA rank (CA->Council). He would like me to "step up" into a council leader position. I'll be referring to some of the future changes within this thread so if you haven't read about these changes then please go to this thread.

 

For this post I wanted to just discuss what we have been doing wrong up until now and how we are going to improve on them for the future.

(the points below are typed addressing the current CA's including myself)

Communication

The one main issue which keeps coming back to us, time and time again is communication. We don't talk to each other enough and we don't share information between each other. We are all guilty of this and even though we put measures into place (such as the CA discord) it hasn't helped to improve this.

This has lead to situations where we are trying to tackle issues from multiple directions with no real progress getting made. This was evident with the "About GFL" project which we all assumed someone else was taking control of instead of making the combined effort to get it done.

We could try and solve this with regular meetings and promises to keep in touch but that just isn't going to work. It hasn't worked yet.

 

Something @Roy is pushing for, is more activity within the Trusted discord. This is both within the voice chat and the within the trusted text channels. Since we want to be more open and honest with what we are working on, I am going to disband the CA only discord. We need to move away from independence and start treating the entire staff team as one group! 

Now we need to set a standard which we all need to keep to. We all have voice chat and are in TeamSpeak most of the time. I want to have a dedicated amount of time every week for everyone to be able chat. Whether this is via voice chat or not doesn't matter. 

With me "stepping up" into more of a council leader this means I will be available much more often on the trusted discord and if you are looking for something to do then I will be the one to ask. 

 

Teamwork

Another issue we have is working together as a group. Yes, independence can be a very good quality and a valuable one for this role. But, we need to make sure that we can all work together as a team. 

Now this links in with communication a lot, as if we all know what we are working on then there shouldn't be a situation where we don't have work to do.

Now there isn't a clear cut solution to this issue without physically working together we won't improve. So for any projects which we undertake, we need to always have 2 of us working on them. If you do any forum work such as checking perms, poke another CA and tell them to help out real quick.

Obviously working on this will require us to have better communication and the improvements listed above should help with that.

 

Organised Effort

One suggestion I want us to try to work on, is a more organised approach to work. 

For every project that we have, we need to make a post within the CA section. Let us all expand upon the ideas. Once we do that, two CA's will be assigned to it. You can either assign yourself or I can assign people for it based on our original roles. Then depending on the project and how long it is expected to take, we should post weekly progress reports on the thread. 

Once we start doing this it will become much easier to manage, but our current approach of doing something on our own is not traceable and can lead to people thinking that we are inactive. 

 

Trello

Now we have started to use Trello more and more, which helps with keeping everything transparent. We want everyone to know what we are working on and which of us is working on them. 

We all need to become more involved within this. Just take 2 minutes to update the project you are working on and it keeps everyone happy. If you post a topic with an issue then put it in the trello! 

We have this Trello for things which we want the public to see- https://trello.com/b/pZ85Aj3V/other-overview

 

There isn't going to be one answer to fix all our problems. But hopefully with the rank changes which are coming up, we can treat this as a fresh start. 

If you have any other thoughts and opinions on the new changes then please don't hesitate to post below!

Nobody is directly to blame and we don't need to target specific people to be responsible, as we are all responsible for the current situation. We just need to ensure it doesn't happen again.

[Roy 10,832 / 0]

Looks great @Darkling! I'm looking forward to the future!

 

Thanks!

[John Jeez Man 556 / 12,187]

Don't read a single thing but looking forward to it!

[Darkling 2,041 / 23,430]

This is one of many changes that we plan to make to improve the staff team in general. I will be moving most of the these posts out from the trusted section for everyone to comment and express your views on the topics. I believe in keeping GFL transparent, and so does our current staff team (and future team members).

[Ben 2,376 / 31,130]

Looking afterward to any future decision and announcement, nice post.

[Hello. 1,450 / 24,174]

2 two CA's --- @Shuruia is tagged for offensive grammar.

 

 

 

Good post, though. Let's see what you got.

[Darkling 2,041 / 23,430]

5 minutes ago, PB-n-J said:

2 two CA's --- @Shuruia is tagged for offensive grammar.

 

 

 

Good post, though. Let's see what you got.

Tempted to hide your post, but that wouldn't be very transparent of me XD. I was talking on discord whilst being spam messaged by @Xy_ (I actually found another mistake I didn't see too, but nobody noticed).

 

[Joshy 4,318 / 43,204]

Be careful not to create too much paperwork for trivial tasks.

[Hello. 1,450 / 24,174]

4 minutes ago, Darkling said:

Tempted to hide your post, but that wouldn't be very transparent of me XD. I was talking on discord whilst being spam messaged by @Xy_ (I actually found another mistake I didn't see too, but nobody noticed).

 

 

Oh, there are more. Don't worry.

 

  

[Darkling 2,041 / 23,430]

20 minutes ago, Joshy said:

Be careful not to create too much paperwork for trivial tasks.

This was also mentioned within our trusted topic. The trivial tasks are going to be handled using a separate communication method such as discord. Such as our monthly checklist that we have at the moment, which isn't something I would expect people to post on with regular updates. 

 

It is primarily our bigger projects which would require more effort and organisation, which up until now has been holding us back.

[Joshy 4,318 / 43,204]

Delegate tasks to lower tiered Staff members such as Server Admins and Server Managers.

 

"I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep." - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

 

Would you rather have 10 Community Advisors working on a project, or a Communtiy Advisor leading 10 team members per project?  You'll get more done and it will inherently compensate for your "communication issues" because the members will more directly know the status, and they might even be able to communicate its progress or results for you; furthermore: They'll become more involved and invested, it'll take a load off your shoulders, and it'll prepare them for Staff roles when the time comes (like now).

 

Of course... for critical tasks: Hold their hand and guide them through it should they need it, or work on it separately (a redundant although protective measure) should they fall behind or fail.

[Pedro 249 / 6,080]

#TrustTheProcess

[Royce 201 / 4,813]

"Setting goals is the first step in turning the invisible to the visible"

[MrManslayerX 390 / 6,713]

I was in the middle of typing a giant thought dump/rant that was already 3 pages long, but quite frankly, I'll just tell you to listen to Joshy, guys. Seriously. He's chock full of wisdom, make use of it.
I think I've pretty much agreed with 99% of what he's ever said on GFL... Hell, most of the things I typed on this thought dump were already covered more charismatically and succinctly by him in recent times. We could all stand to learn something from him.
I worked with him as an admin back when I was just the manager of the CS:S RPG Surf server, and damned if he wasn't a valuable asset to me. He got promoted but apparently he just stepped on the wrong toes, garnered a bad rap? Why all the hate? See the logic, the reason behind the words... Not the person speaking them.
Let's make an effort to be a little more sensible about things, more realistic, yea?

[Darkling 2,041 / 23,430]

13 hours ago, Joshy said:

Delegate tasks to lower tiered Staff members such as Server Admins and Server Managers.

 

"I am more afraid of an army of 100 sheep led by a lion than an army of 100 lions led by a sheep." - Charles Maurice de Talleyrand

 

Would you rather have 10 Community Advisors working on a project, or a Communtiy Advisor leading 10 team members per project?  You'll get more done and it will inherently compensate for your "communication issues" because the members will more directly know the status, and they might even be able to communicate its progress or results for you; furthermore: They'll become more involved and invested, it'll take a load off your shoulders, and it'll prepare them for Staff roles when the time comes (like now).

 

Of course... for critical tasks: Hold their hand and guide them through it should they need it, or work on it separately (a redundant although protective measure) should they fall behind or fail.

I am someone who has always looked up to Joshy, which he does already know. Our opinions on certain matters have tended to align. 

 

One opinion which had been brought up in a different topic is that CAs shouldn't be focusing on events. The mentally behind that post I didn't believe in as I believe creating events helps to bring all of the different people within GFL together and helps bring in new members. However I did agree with the idea. One smaller project that I am working on is taking a leap out of the GCC's book. Event coordinators (name unimportant), we have 4/5 people currently within GFL who are exceeding in many ways within GCC. I'm going to be building a team with them and transfer some of that energy into GFL. 

This project is one of many which does line up with the quote above from Joshy (don't worry this idea isn't fully fleshed out here as it will be a separate post).

 

As my profile "About Me" section does state, "I help within the staff team to put views across which I believe would benefit us all. Have something you want listened to? Talk to me!". Never hesitate to message me if you want your view put across, be it good or bad. 

[Pyros 1,794 / 30,512]

2 hours ago, Darkling said:

Event coordinators (name unimportant)

wow, love you as well I guess 

[Domps 300 / 5,273]

Can I be a Council? I check the forums once every two weeks just like I need too

[CNe7532294 171 / 4,769]

HOLY COW I just realized how much I barely even know those in charge. It makes me sad knowing that I'm just getting older and older. While things that were familiar to me fade away. Kudos to passing on the torch though. Tis a great thing to keep things-a-goin. Congratz to all who made it for your hard work.