Improved project portfolio

This #projects-

forum has some shortcomings that we might be able to overcome with a different approach:

The problems

The amount of projects is pretty overwhelming.
Some projects are very tiny in scope, others are really big. The #Influencer outreach (e-mails) project for example, has a ton of messages and people involved.
These larger projects are the most important, but also the hardest to read about. Clicking them sneds you to the bottom of the comments, which means you miss the intro post
Not all projects are well-described and actually want significant help
Only discord members can see it. We miss the web-only folk!

## The solution

We could add a Projects page to the website. Here will be a subset of projects listed. Each project has a clear description of why it is important, what people can do to help. Ideally, they have a striking visual. Some projects, like the influencer project, clearly links to relevant tools like the email builder.

How you can help

Design: make a visual design, or help to think about what should be shown in a project.
Code: make the Sveltekit components in the website

Thanks to @Chris Gerrby and @Felix De Simone for this idea. Also tagging @Maxime F (RationalHippy) who's managing the projects now.

dead-brown•4/3/24, 9:54 AM

!track

ProjectBot•4/3/24, 9:54 AM

Project Tracker: https://maximolog.notion.site/Improved-project-portfolio-c351b26ad2f94a9c8a43f3cb98ce4f86

Maxime Fournes's Notion on Notion

Improved project portfolio | Notion

This #

projects forum has some shortcomings that we might be able to overcome with a different approach:

The problems

The amount of projects is pretty overwhelming.
Some projects are very tiny in scope, others are really big. The #Influencer outreach (e-mails) project for example, has a ton of messages and people involved.
These la...

full-green•4/3/24, 3:37 PM

Excellent!
I have thoughts about features if we want to go all out.

Project Fields:

Title
Description
Priority Level (Low, Normal, High, Most Important)
Point of Contact
List of help needed (each action/role as its own item):
- Skills needed (from tags)
- Level of Effort / Commitment (Tiny, Medium, Large)

Available Filters:

Keyword search (Title, Description)
Skills needed
Level of Effort
Open/Closed/Either (Open by default)

Sort By:

Priority (default) -- by Priority Level, then ID descending
New -- by ID descending

Admin Capabilities:

Create Project
Edit Project (all fields)
Close/Reopen Project
Delete project (soft-delete to avoid accidental data loss)

full-green•4/3/24, 3:39 PM

For point of contact, it would probably be good to give a PauseAI email address to project leads.

full-green•4/3/24, 3:41 PM

Oh, and display the projects as cards on the projects page.

worthy-azure•4/3/24, 3:58 PM

Brilliant! I think a lot of these are good ideas. I'd add that, for newcomers who are visiting our website for the first time, we should make sure that the experience isn't too overwhelming.

Since we can have a priority tag, one idea might be to display e.g. the top 5 projects (highest priority + we need help with) front and center on the website, with other projects maybe a bit further down. This is just one idea, though - curious to hear others' thoughts!

dead-brown•4/3/24, 4:45 PM

For the fields, just want to point out that we already store all of these

(originally in notion and now also in airtable)

awake-maroon•4/3/24, 11:05 PM

Love it! I think this could be one of the most important things we can do really well, being in the current state of the community and infrastructure.

Odds are high we'll grow more in the coming months, I believe this piece of infrastructure is critical to be able to scale well (scale positively). Without this I think growing our volunteer count could be marginally detrimental and put up new challenges (scaling negatively). Cashing out on social capital by getting more people into this discord / movement without presenting a very clear way to help out could result in many small losses. I'm thinking that the initial impression is sometimes the most important impression.

The thing I'm envisioning here is something more but just a list of projects. The portfolio is a way to convince people to join our effort -- if they help out in any of the projects in this portfolio, they'll have confidence that they'll have a counterfactually greater impact than if they would go out doing this on their own. Their impact will be expedited due to the guides on how to help out for every project, how to counter the risks for every project, who to reach out to for every project, join a team for every project, etc.

It's also a way to quickly capitalize on people's initial burst of engagement, and to keep momentum after the initial burst via reward systems (ideally integrated with the portfolio).

Instead of putting lots of projects into this portfolio, I think we should instead opt to have a really well made select few projects that we are confident will have an impact and enable people to add to these projects easily. The projects should embody the PauseAI mission; by being able to state this fact in the portfolio is a big plus convincing people to join in as it gives legitimacy.

awake-maroon•4/3/24, 11:05 PM

What's more, since every project would have a clear guide on how to help, this would significantly lower the bar for volunteers with only a few hours on their hands on a weekly basis, thus making it meaningful for them, increasing the odds of continuing.

We can leverage that we are an authority in space. People willing to help out but not knowing how, can just select a project in our portfolio that they contribute to well with given their assumptions and skills. I expect many would entrust this judgment call to us, decreasing the overhead necessary to help out, gaining a lot of volunteers with a few hours per week (suitable for a few projects).

In my mind, a critical framing of this portfolio is to give volunteers a clear value proposition that enables them to go and have impact. Enable is the focus keyword, compared to the other side of the spectrum: asking them to do our work / do our homework (I'm not saying that this is the current vibe, just as a comparison). I think this should be a core question in all our recruitment efforts (and in general the whole operation -- in case we're continuing to be a volunteer driven movement) as by having strong value props, we'd organically attract volunteers.

In general, I think the project portfolios should be very polished and have a professional vibe. Many volunteers come from communities where they are used to a professional vibe and coud be thrown off by something else. I expect the more senior someone is, the more this is true, and simultaneously, the higher impact they can have.

awake-maroon•4/3/24, 11:12 PM

I'm happy to expand and discuss any of the points. Importantly, if you feel that you have a different stance on some point, I encourage you to share and push back. What I value the higest is finding the optimal strategy.

sacred-rose•4/5/24, 5:08 AM

I like all of your ideas. I think I would have a good list and redirect from the website to that list. That sounds good enough.

sacred-rose•4/5/24, 5:09 AM

What are you guys opinion on the pros/cons of Notion, Airtable and gsheets?

sacred-rose•4/5/24, 5:10 AM

the obvious one from gsheets is that we don't have the projects there

sacred-rose•4/5/24, 5:10 AM

or maybe not the pros and cons but we should decide on one, no?

sacred-rose•4/5/24, 5:21 AM

For general project management stuff, we should use #Project Management (meta), I have written some stuff there, but yeah, before linking a list to the website it should probably have:

only the active, important projects (maybe with leaders)
the active, important projects well separated from the rest

sacred-rose•4/5/24, 6:00 AM

And the idea is to have gdocs for each important project, right?

hurt-tomatoOP•4/8/24, 9:59 AM

I had a chat with @Maxime F (RationalHippy) about projects and teams last week.

We basically thought that instead of having a projects portfolio, we might need more focus on a teams portfolio.

Teams are like projects, in the sense that they organize a group of people to work on something together within some scope. But there are some differences:

Teams are always groups of people
Teams have regular meetings
Teams have their own discord channel
Teams have a clear leader that reports back to PauseAI

I agree with @Chris Gerrby's points. Each should have a clear proposition, value and set of actions. But I'd like to hear what you think about framing this as teams instead of projects.

hurt-tomatoOP•4/8/24, 10:00 AM

Also, check this doc about teams: https://docs.google.com/document/d/1Gp-Ar6O9IsnFSUaaYmPw18NPuiILAWqJ6K047EHrOes/edit

awake-maroon•4/8/24, 11:20 AM

In my model, teams is an important component, but it's not at the center of the idea. For example, constraining to the team abstraction, we'd have to retrofit some unfitting projects, or even exclude some (say sending out emails to politicians isn't always a team type of project, but an individual one).

All the features you have listed@Joep Meindertsma I think are great and should be in the projects where they add value.

Designing the portfolio: I'd begin at the ToC level of analysis choosing what PAI can stand behind as an organization, then go deeper: what projects fits this description, then, what features are necessary for people to be able to work on this with little overhead and high quality, then, with these features listed, make a priority between them, then design the portfolio / ecosystem with this as a foundation.

I'll write up a more proper proposition that explains the reasoning behind the steps soon.

sacred-rose•4/24/24, 6:32 AM

so, I've searched "airtable" in discord and haven't found the link for the projects anywhere, Maxime? Chris?

Ssacred-rose so, I've searched "airtable" in discord and haven't found the link for the proje...

dead-brown•4/24/24, 2:39 PM

there is no more link from discord to the project in airtable. Wouldn't be really useful right now since most people don't have access to airtable. I could create a public view for the projects though

Ddead-brown there is no more link from discord to the project in airtable. Wouldn't be reall...

sacred-rose•4/24/24, 2:52 PM

sorry, I mean the project portfolio. I don't have it

dead-brown•4/24/24, 2:53 PM

https://airtable.com/appWPTGqZmUcs3NWu/tblhmytaGMJFAfkdj/viw96sdXdzUEUHxKg?blocks=hide

Airtable

Airtable | Everyone's app platform

Airtable is a low-code platform for building collaborative apps. Customize your workflow, collaborate, and achieve ambitious outcomes. Get started for free.

dead-brown•4/24/24, 2:53 PM

you need to have access to airtable

primary-violet•6/8/24, 8:47 PM

Urgh. I tried to search for a way to "pin" this channel to my channel list, but apparently the only way to do that might be to comment here.

Pprimary-violet Urgh. I tried to search for a way to "pin" this channel to my channel list, but ...

hurt-tomatoOP•6/8/24, 8:48 PM

I think there's an icon in the top right (on android)

Screenshot_2024-06-08-22-48-10-571_com.discord-edit.jpg

primary-violet•6/8/24, 8:55 PM

That does not help. Nor does turning notifications on. At least for threads, it is related to time of last activity, after some period they are hidden anyway. Probably same goes for forum posts.

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How you can help

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