This is our latest agreed process for proposals that we came up with at the Monthly meeting on 4th of September 2023.
Our agreements for how the process of Proposals flows:
When writing a proposal:
- Think about and highlight what crossovers we see with other parts of the programme
- Specify why and how (this means you’ll be inviting participation/asking for feedback from these people specifically)
- Whenever possible: be clear about how much time is asked/needed of whom as part of their role if their participation is needed
- This means that collaboration is the spirit and responsibility is held by the relationship (modelling what BiP is setting out to achieve)
- It is a responsibility for everyone to read and let the ‘proposer’ know if there’s not a crossover
- The more proposals get passed, the more responsibility there is for a new proposal to feed into the other work and proposals going on
- Include a short summary if the proposal is long
- Be more directive with timeline/activity line
- Include a timeline – what is what and when will it happen
- eg. this part of the proposal has already started/is starting by x/this part will be delayed/blocked unless/until the proposal is passed
When posting a proposal on groups.io:
- Include in topic of the post and/or at top of proposal:
- clarify the deadline for latest feedback by when
- clarify who is asked to give feedback
- Include at top of proposal:
- List of crossovers of work and names of these people
- If relevant/possible: an estimate of how much time is needed to read + comment on proposal (eg. 20-30min)
- Short summary of the proposal
After the proposal has been posted on groups.io
- If you are asking someone in particular to participate or give feedback, also send them an email with a link to the proposal (groups.io) in order to prompt them.
- Be specific about who needs to give advice, by when and for what part (eg. “Karen, please read particularly page 20-25”)
- People involved in the programme are being asked to comment at least ‘read and understood’ so that we can feel encouraged and valued.
How do we know if a Proposal is passed/not passed?
- People are trusted as leads to carry out a proposal
- If no one has objected within the time of the deadline given
- If questions, concerns and other feedback has been incorporated
- If the process listed above is fulfilled
- If the proposal has clear budgets and fits within our budget (we don’t have a lead/very clear process for this yet except starting to look over budget at our Monthly Meetings)
- In order to track the process of proposals, we have made ‘Checking the status of Proposals’ a regular item on the agenda of Weekly Meetings
- Going through the budget is a regular item to run through on our Monthly Meeting agenda
