Clearly Defined Roles

Successful collaborative projects involve regular engagement with contributors, to encourage and support their work in order to achieve the project’s goals.

Some projects are led by a project team, which has ultimate responsibility for decision making, for example on the scope of the project and what data is included. In contrast, some projects are more decentralised, allowing members of the community to participate in the governance and decision-making processes.

Regardless of the model that is adopted, it is important that roles and responsibilities are clearly defined. This will help resolve potential disputes and ensure that contributors know where to turn to for help and support.

If the community is involved in decision making, ensure there are Published Policies for seeking and documenting agreement. If the project leadership makes the final decisions, ensure you have Visible Processes so that decision making is transparent.

Roles and responsibilities can be managed in different ways. Projects led by a core team will have those roles assigned through team membership. Other projects might allow contributors to be given roles through Granted Privileges, eg giving them the ability to review and revert the work of others. Projects might also rely on Automatically Acquiring Privileges as a means to share responsibility. Regardless of the approach, there should be transparency around how roles are assigned.

It should also be clear which members of the team or community have specific roles, making it easier to know which person to approach for help and advice. You can publish a list or indicate roles on user profile pages