Collaboration 2016
Text copied from the Hackpad.
Sharing referring and outsourcing work
- Date: Wed 16th Nov 2016
- Attendance: Pete Felix Mateus Harry Brian James Chris and David
How can different coops work together? To pitch for larger jobs or assemble teams for particular jobs. A mutual understanding about pricing processes and tools. We started by drawing on previous meeting notes from the 'Imagine the megazord in 3 years time' from the previous day.
Some key points that we wanted to elaborate on:
- Knowing the skills in the network
- List all our clients
- Create coop profiles that members of the Megazord can access and browse
- Some way to discern availability
To focus on what we can start doing next week. We want to be able to map the Megazord. Outlandish have some money put to one side to create a webapp to list the coops. Being able to see which coops have surplus work, which have to little. To start working on this next week we'd need some out of the box software. Media wiki or spreadsheet? Having graphics would be really useful.
- WE WILL START A MEDIA WIKI
A coops profile should contain
- Organisation
- Worker Co-op?
- Notes
- Main business
- Main contact
- Phone
- Website
- Total people
- FTE
- Where
- Turnover 2014/15
- Turnover 2015/16
Sheet with coop data to move onto media wiki coop data
Business Development
Outlandish can easily find work, how do other coops do biz-dev. Get work through a biz dev team. Work comes through word of month, proposals and quotes take all forms. From informal verbal agreements, to more formal documents. Robin hood model.
The co-workers of London, they have been sharing information about each others, pitching together for work and going on retreats. Visuals of members, offices etc help build awareness of others along with face to face time.
Cooperative web have a guy in a suit (suit boy) they find everything by personal referrals. They have a team of 25, orrcal, blue chip stuff they are well know. Some tenders
TABLEFLIP trickle of enquiries that they mainly manage to convert to paid projects. Lots of startups that turns into 3 to 4 weeks of work. They run meetups in London so have some profile in the community. They need a more stable pipeline.
Go Free Range, very passive. Rudy community can be a source of work. All work is on time and materials, trust based.
Gilded splinters (previous incarnation) networking to tenders. Expensive and didn't work very well. Wide range of members interests, networking, going to meetups and messaging. Formalising networking as a strategy. Have approached (written letters) to a company and offered to work with them.
Wave repeat business and tenders. Tender created 1.5 weeks.
Open e commerce. From friends, building portfolio pieces. Did meetups, which worked. Offers finders fees for work. If someone comes with a project, they try to incorporate that person with the delivery of the project and the coop. The contact communicates with the client.
Webarchitects. Accidents. Word of mouth. Not really looking. Need work.
Agile collective. Have a biz dev team of 3. Same as many points above. A growing 25% of support contracts. Tenders, pitches and proposals (time wasting). They feel they need to analise their current approach. Started winning everything they went for. Now they are not. The warmer the human relationship the more likely they are to win it. Lots of opportunities are coming
Agile collective have a statement of intent that lays out who they will work with. Their collaborative values inform who they will work with. Co-workers work with not for profit companies.
- COOPS SOULD HAVE A NAMED POINT OF CONTACT FOR INCOMING REQUESTS FROM OTHER COOPS
Sharing work
- Lookup the coop that you think can help and contact them
- There is a slack channels if we idle in that we can post things
- Sharing a template for a SLA (service level agreement) drawn up by a lawyer
- WE ARE GOING TO SHARE ON SLACK
What do we do when there is an overlay of services? Two design coops, do they complete? First response wins? Alot of it might be to do with relationships, and who we'd like to work with. Who needs the work more? what are the different situations in the different coops? It is not a zero sum game. A larger megazord pot that will all contribute to might mitigate compertition. Or an individual champions a project. So GS might get a brief, that brief is shared with the coop members, and they response. Most approprate response they takes the project forward with the client. The investment is in the idea, not individuals.
How do we distribute training? Invite other coops to share bought in training. Turning to coops does mean we can feedback to each other, so if.
Loomio tech coops has some good information on princible 6
Retreats
- Commitment to create another retreat
- For Outlandish to not have to do everything next time
- The media wiki can provide static information and slack can be more organisational
- Leaving it for a year it too long
- Spend a day/week in someone else's offices
- Join in a meeting around another coop's brief or proposal