IndiaFOSS 3.0 - Feedback

[mriya11]

IndiaFOSS 3.0 - Insights and Feedback

IndiaFOSS’s third edition marked a commendable growth in scale and impact, demonstrating the potential of a volunteer-driven event. Within the spirit and energy, there are several lessons and insights that I’ve observed and curated from feedback, to further enhance the quality and effectiveness of future editions:

1. To have a clear division of labour between individuals who take ownership of the different workgroups and aspects - which could be logistics and non-logistics, to have better accountability.

@knadh

We need a process / system for training volunteers and clearly communicating responsibilities. We have to do justice to the energy and enthusiasm volunteers bring

2. Most of our volunteers were new to volunteering for large events and had to be briefed to make them more familiar with our workflows. The bottleneck occurred when the communication wasn’t that effective for handling the event days, and led to confusions at some points

3. Managing communication and coordination more effectively is in scope for improvement.

   • One of our goals until the next IndiaFOSS is to nurture a process for the same, not just for event volunteering, but for all contributions to the community.

4. Tracking our progress/decisions in public (forum) is the better way, as it demands more accountability. Even though it was a point duly noted while we started, it got mixed as the event neared, and some of the logistic aspects were missed to be updated on our planning thread.

   • As a measure, we are now making a point to be more active on forum, and share notes on our discussions here. A few to be regularly updated - the platform changelog, new design strategy, organisational updates and decisions etc.

5. Our selection of talks and sessions went through a delay - in curation, decisions, publishing and feedback. Though quality was maintained on the selection, the process itself had nuances - and making it more open makes it effective for better.

   • We are developing a CFP management and review module in our new platform that helps the review of proposals better.

   • @rushabh is on to create guidelines on how a good talk/proposal is to be.

   • The platform will also channelise our efforts into automating as much workflows and experiences - ticketing, emailing, scheduling, information management etc.,

6. FOSS Awards’ nominations and plans are on hold for this time. The updates on the same will be shared soon.

Most of the post-event action items are in process - feedback curation, auditing and budget reports (will be published after reimbursements are done) etc.,

With all the insights, we are now set for another year at FOSS United - and our efforts are streamlined for its growth as a community-driven organisation.

Cheers