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Suggestions, Issues, Complaints, and Kudos Business Processes

Submitted by Sohodojo Jim on Tue, 09/09/2003 - 17:48. Table of Twelve (Exec. Committee) | All SIG News | The Chandler Guild Community

Mike made a number of excellent suggestions in his article, "Conscious Community Conflict Resolution." So, the No Time Like the Present Department is pleased to announce our initial implementation of four new business processes for the Chandler Guild. While these processes will evolve over the coming months, Guild members can begin to use them immediately.

We now have the following processes in place which are being implemented by a simple e-mail workflow communication channel:

Each of these processes is based on the following workflow:

  1. Guild member composes and sends an e-mail to the appropriate box.
  2. An autoresponder associated with each box replies with a copy of the original message, and an explanation that the item has been received and how it will be handled.
  3. The item is then forwarded to each member of the Table of Twelve by way of the Table's administrative mailing list.
  4. At the next teleconference meeting of the Table of Twelve, or through discussion within the Table of Twelve mailing list, the item will be assigned a champion or moderator.
  5. The champion or moderator, in concert with select members of the Table if necessary, will determine a response or recommend a course of action to address the item.
  6. The Guild member submitting the item will receive a response from the champion or moderator by e-mail. Alternatively, the item may be addressed by posting content at the Chandler Guild web site, in which case the Guild member submitting the item will receive a notification to this effect via e-mail.
Each item submitted to any of the four boxes and its response will be reported and recorded in the minutes of the Table of Twelve meeting during which the item is reported and/or handled.

We realize that this is not an optimum solution to our need for the development of business processes for the Chandler Guild. It does overload the Table of Twelve with administrative tasks that may detract from its ability to address more strategic agendas. Our initial experience with input to these boxes will help us to refine and improve these business processes.

If you have any comments or questions, do not hesitate to reply with a comment to this article.

--Sohodojo Jim--
on behalf of The Chandler Guild

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This is a great idea Jim

Submitted by la Terra LTD on Wed, 09/10/2003 - 08:13.

I do have one small concern.

If an issue arises that two parties can not come to an agreement on, and they decide to give the Council a chance to intervene with mediation, what will happen if the Council can not act in a timely enough manner, and the parties involved miss a legal deadline/statute of limitation. This would leave them up a creak, so to speak.

I may have worded this awkwardly, but hopefully you see what I am getting at.

Bob Sterenberg
American Harvest Candles, LTD.
Star Lily Brand Innovative Soy Products

chandler@americanharvestcandles.us
www.americanharvestcandles.us

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Knowing Our Limits: 'Family' Moving to Business

Submitted by Sohodojo Jim on Wed, 09/10/2003 - 10:57.

Thanks for your encouragement, Bob.

As I have said here and in other places, and as was a theme throughout the Congress, the Chandler Guild is a work in process. For most of us, this is our first nontrivial involvement in building a peer-envisioned and a peer-managed business organization.

There is a lot of talk and writing by academics and business pundits about the merits and dynamics of self-organized and self-managed business organizations. But few of these folks are actually building such an organization.

Virtually everything we're doing here is exploratory and a learning process. Remember, the Chandler Guild is not yet a legal entity of whatever sort it will become. It's still a shared dream and vision that we're working on together.

So considering the state of the Chandler Guild's development, I'd say we're more like a family at the moment than a business organization. Most of the time folks in a family get along and share their time and space together despite their differences. Sure, there are arguments, there are bad eggs and good, those who leave the fold and those who return.

Family dynamics cover a wide range of activity. In most cases, nobody taught us how to be a member of a family or how families work. We each, as individuals and as families, evolve and learn, and we keep working on it.

So, Bob, when it comes to mediation I think the most we can expect at the moment is for the Chandler Guild's mediation process to be similar to the mediation process in a family. That is, we'll be most effective handling the simple day-to-day and routine issues or complaints that come up among Guild members. And like a family, we'll do our best to find solutions.

And when issues or complaints arise that go beyond the scope of what can be handled by the Chandler Guild business processes, will recognize that immediately and say so to the parties involved.

The Chandler Guild is just one of many layers that influence and regulate our lives. At this point, we're almost exclusively on the influence side of things and don't do any regulating. The Congress kicked off our Year of Discovery and Innovation. Over the course of this year, the work of the Table of Twelve and the various SIGs forming within the Guild will determine the form of our organization and the extent to which the Guild will have a regulatory influence on our lives.

Regardless of the details of how this works out, I believe anything that is serious enough to have legal deadlines and statutes of limitations involved goes beyond the scope of what the Chandler Guild business processes are designed to handle.

So, Bob, I don't think we'll be leaving anyone up the creek. We'll recognize the scope of our processes, handle what's within them, and let folks know when they should seek other remedies.

Thanks for your input and encouragement,
-- Sohodojo Jim --

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Thanks for the clarification Jim.

Submitted by la Terra LTD on Wed, 09/10/2003 - 11:13.

I had interpreted your initial post as saying the Council was going to try and handle disputes of a legal nature.

Glad to hear that is not the case at this time, though with enough growth, maybe down the road, a few lawyers turned chandler would be willing to set up some sort of legal dispute resolution.

Bob Sterenberg
American Harvest Candles, LTD.
Star Lily Brand Innovative Soy Products

chandler@americanharvestcandles.us
www.americanharvestcandles.us

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