Knowledge Gardening Crew
The following is a summary of the objectives and associated decision-making scope delegated to the Knowledge Gardening Crew by participants of the Brassica Collective (via the consent process detailed in our interim decision making process, with the proposal and discussion documented on Loomio).
Goal
The Knowledge Gardening Crew’s goal is to document our project in ways that support us to implement our collective agreements internally, and share our processes as we learn about collective practices in public.
Objectives
- Generate, maintain, and manage internal documentation that supports the implementation of our collective processes
- Generate, maintain, and manage public documentation to share changes in our collective processes for others to use and/or adapt
- Deciding when to edit or archive Handbook content that is outdated
- Developing processes to make using and contributing to our documentation as accessible to all participants as possible
Scope of Delegation
The Knowledge Gardening Crew are delegated to make decisions needed to implement the above objectives, specifically
- Making documentation management system decisions for our project
- Making decisions about the structure in which information is organised across and between documents
- Arbitrating conflicting edits to documents, noting that if this is happening frequently we should form a collective agreement about how to handle these conflicts.
Out-of-Scope
We expect other Crews to continue documenting their own processes. While the Knowledge Gardening Crew can support crews when requested, their focus will be on organising the project documentation generated across other crews.
We expect the Knowledge Gardening Crew to consult with the relevant Crew about documentation decisions that impact their objectives. Examples include:
- Consulting with PAS Crew when updating documentation about how to facilitate an Assembly
- Consulting with Solidarity Crew when we are considering the broader justice implications of choosing a particular product or supplier
Additionally, we expect the Knowledge Gardening Crew to ask Collective participants for advice on decisions that require significant work from non-crew participants or are potentially controversial. For example, deciding when and how to introduce a new documentation tool or processes that changes how participants are expected to meet their minimum responsibilities
The Knowledge Gardening Crew is not expected to be responsible for internal and external communication processes (these remain PAS Crew responsibilities).
The Knowledge Gardening Crew will consult and petition PAS Crew for funds as needed
Timeline
Given the objectives outlined above, we expect the Knowledge Gardening Crew to be needed in ongoing yet intermittently active way. As usual, we expect the associated responsibilities and workload will need to be distributed amongst participants to be sustainable.
Given that some of the responsibilities outlined above rely on specific technical skills, there is an added expectation on more experienced crew participants to prioritise opportunities to share relevant technical skills with less experienced crew participants.
For those intervals the crew is active, updates on how the Knowledge Gardening Crew is working towards the above objectives will be included in the Crew report backs at the relevant Assembly .
Context
Documentation functions to transparently record our collective decisions and processes, and can help us organise the information we generate throughout the project so that all participants can access it. To remain relevant and useful, project documentation needs to be regularly tended.
Examples of information that we want to document in public includes records of our decisions; legal and financial documents; retrofit designs; project-timelines; and how-to materials. Examples of internal documentation includes meeting notes; discussion threads; facilitation materials; and draft agreements.