Efficient board meetings, revised

Bruce Perens bruce at perens.com
Fri Oct 15 20:42:56 UTC 2004


I think it's an excellent idea to empower committees to do more work, 
rather than leave that work to the SPI board to micromanage. However, I 
don't believe that SPI's board meetings are disfunctional.

It's difficult to get the attention of board members in little snips 
across a whole month. They have committed to give you their full 
attention for an hour a month, and that seems to work OK. We have made 
quorum reliably except when there has been nothing on the agenda.

To give you a read of how this works elsewhere, my committment as a 
director on for-profit boards is 100 hours per year per company. Any 
more than that, and I would be paid at my full consulting rate.

I feel that the banter on SPI IRC board meetings is a natural part of 
getting a bunch of somewhat hot-headed people together, and allows them 
to blow off some of the agression that they would otherwise direct at 
each other in more harmful ways.

Are you sure it's broken?

    Thanks

    Bruce






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