XM Extreme Recruiting

See also XM Extreme Recruiting Version Before 4/21/12. Contact - recruiting at opensourceecology dot org

Overview

If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together.-Lilla Watson

To help the organization scale, we are developing an effective recruiting strategy. Recruiting Standards for the Recruiting Team are defined here.

The general on-boarding strategy includes education, recruiting, and process training. Education involves training towards multi-disciplinary boundary crossing that each participant is expected to undertake as part of our learning organization. Recruiting involves this Extreme Recruiting platform - a crowd-based platform for recruiting which focuses on transparency of the recruiting process. The process training refers to establishing a background of obviousness on specific development techniques that brings about high development velocity on the ~120 Control Panel steps of the Extreme Manufacturing platform.

The first step to engaging any new, open product development process is identifying - first - a Product Director (Products Owner) and Product Managers (Scrum Masters) to manage the development effort. Once the Product Director is recruited, a Production Director is needed for managing production runs, Farm Director for managing the land-based facility and food production, and Construction Manager for expanding the built infrastructure. We have already recruited a Documenter.

The desired Staff at FeF is thus:

This is the basic team ecology for 2012. (click to edit)

This core crew is intended to manage a large number of volunteers with approximate ratio of staff to volunteers of 1 to 4:

• Workshop assistants - assist the Product Director and Production Run Director in prototyping and
• Organic farm volunteers - WWOOF and other agriculture volunteers
• Organizers, recruiters, videographers, developers, CAD people, Flash Mob organizers, and many others.

The basic operating principle is a focus on product development, and as soon as products are developed, they may be sold as kits to bootstrap further facility development. Upon optimization of production, Staff is required to begin funding itself at least in part by participating in production runs, as negotiated with the Director of Production.

The community is expected to grow to about 20 people in 2012. This implies facility expansion to additional living quarters, under leadership of the Construction Director.

The Staff receives a stipend. Accommodations and food (common dinner every night) will be provided as soon as we recruit a part time cook.

Application Process for Product Director and Scrum Masters (Product Managers)

The Product Director oversees overall GVCS development. Product Managers run single projects according to the ~80 control panel steps.

These are the requirements for the Product Director and Product Managers.

• SMs and POs live on site at Factor e Farm (FeF)
• Daily Scrum from noon to 6 at the FeF workshop, with Daily Standup at noon.
• Daily vlog overview, daily documentation of tasks done on the wiki, and other supporting vlogs showing ongoing progress with several short videos per day using a smart phone with instant upload.
• Full time commitment
• 3 month duration
• $2k/month stipend

To apply, please do the following:

• View the TED Talk - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/marcin_jakubowski.html
• Read the Extreme Manufacturing Blog Post
• Study the XM Project Page platform and read existing links for insights on our process for developing the Extreme Manufacturing method.
• Submit a 1-2 minute vlog introducing yourself: (1), name and where you are located; (2), why you are interested in applying; (3) what you think will be the greatest challenge in deploying the XM method; (4), and how you will address that challenge. Please upload your video to a sharing site such as your YouTube channel or any other publicly-visible format. Make sure that the video is open for viewing by the general public.
• Upon receiving your application above, we will review your submission, and if you pass initial screening - we will set up an appointment for an interview with. Make sure to include your 1 minute intro video.
• Your interview will consist of a discussion about tactical aspects of the platform and how you would go about managing the platform in the practical development of one or several of the GVCS tools.

Basically, we are putting the responsibility on you to contribute to developing the platform in our first discussion with you. This will help the project, and it will allow us to gain insight into your creative capacity for being a Scrum Master. The same applies to Product Owner applicants.

We are looking to recruit a total of 10 Scrum Masters by July 1, 2012

Application Process for Farm Director, Construction Director, and Production Director - and Any Other Role

This is for a 1 month or longer Dedicated Project Visit to Factor e Farm. To apply, please do the following:

• View the TED Talk - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/marcin_jakubowski.html
• Read the Extreme Manufacturing Blog Post
• Study the Building a Team page.
• Submit a 1-2 minute vlog introducing yourself: (1), name and where you are located; (2), why you are interested in applying; (3), what you will contribute to the project, and (4), what is your interest in aprticipating in the OSE Campus. Please upload your video to a sharing site such as your YouTube channel or any other publicly-visible format. Make sure that the video is open for viewing by the general public.
• Set up an appointment for an interview by emailing recruiting at opensourceecology dot org. Make sure to include your 1 minute intro video.
• Your interview will consist of a discussion about your interests and commitments regarding the project

Basically, we are putting the responsibility on you to contribute to developing the platform in our first discussion with you. This will help the project, and it will allow us to gain insight into your creative capacity for being a Scrum Master. The same applies to Product Owner applicants.

For Extreme Recruiters - Interview Process for Product Director and Managers (Scrum Masters)

The goal of Recruiters is to contact candidates according to the same procedure as in the application section above. This process will be carried out for extreme transparency to the rest of the community. To achieve this, the interview will be a video interview via Skype or other video platform, where a screen capture with sound will record the interview for further review. Recruiters may be part of the OSE core team (ongoing contributors) or may be other project contributors from the periphery.

The work product consists of the actual interview - where the Recruiter asks the candidate for the following information.

Technical Interview:

• Prepare the candidate beforehand as in the above section. Also prepare the candidate to provide an assessment of the current state of OSE - feedback about where we are as an organization, what we should do, what our priorities should be.

• Name and contact of person + resume + picture + video of screen capture of your interview. This step serves as an assessment of the candidate's willingness to work openly.
• The main part of the interview is a discussion about tactical aspects of the platform and how they would go about implementing in for real development.
  • How familiar are they with our work and how much time did they spend on studying the interface?
  • What do they like about the technique?
  • What suggestions do they have for improvement?
  • Which of those improvements is the candidate capable of leading?
  • On top of this, assess the candidate's feedback regarding the current state suggested direction for OSE. This gives us constructive feedback and assesses the candidate's capacity for critical thinking matched and how well they are grounded regarding our work.

Other Due Diligence:

• Does the candidate agree to OSE owning all intellectual property generated as a result of the candidate's work for the purpose of placing all IP into the public domain?
• Why should we choose them to serve as a Scrum Master or Project Owner for OSE?
• What is their level of interest in the project? Are they interested in using the GCCS tools? Are they interested in 3rd world development? What is their 'skin in the game' factor?
• Are they willing to do this for full time at Factor e Farm at $2k/month stipend for 3 months with accommodations covered? If not, what are their requirements (can be lower or higher).
• When are they available?
• Since much of the task requires resourcefulness in finding people to do perform various steps - and to leverage the contributions of volunteers - how savvy is the candidate they in creative solutions for such organizing?
• How comfortable are they about vlogging of results? How did they feel about doing their application video?
• How experienced are they in project management? Scrum? Microsoft Project? OpenProj? Others?
• Ask candidate to describe the last 5 years of their life. Assess their personability, ability to play as a team, strengths, weaknesses, respectfulness, level of maturity, groundedness, capacity to deliver?

• The candidates are also encouraged to apply for another form of Dedicated Project Visit if they do not make the cut as a Scrum Master or Product Owner.

As a recruiter, you are to publish this information on the wiki under a page titled XM Recruiting - Candidate's Name. Once this page is up, please submit the information to recruiting at opensourceecology dot org, and the candidate will be interviewed by our Interview Team.

You will obtain more effective recruiting results as the Recruiter when you have a good working knowledge of either the XM method or product development. Knowledge of the technique is not necessary but it is helpful.

Technical

Free & Tested Screencapturing Software: http://download.cnet.com/Pixetell/3000-2075_4-10974369.html

There is a 'Recruiting' playlist now on our YouTube channel: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL15BEBF1561A49596&feature=plcp

The recruiting playlist is embedded on the Recruiting Team Page: http://opensourceecology.org/wiki/Teams/XM_Project_Page_Prototype_Recruiting

Desirable Qualities

• Open source culture?
• Does he have maker culture?
• Skin in the game? Build tools vs use tools. Summer Vacation. Etc.
• Volunteer or paid?
• Could they live on site?
• Do they have project management experience?
• Agile experience?
• Design?
• CAD?
• Video or NLE?
• Journalism?
• Organizing-literate and can use the phone?

Links to Interviews

Introduction Video

See Recruiting playlist on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL15BEBF1561A49596&feature=view_all