Node: ELIXIR Luxembourg
Authors: Hana Marčetić and Vilem Ded, data steward liaisons
Topics: Gaps to action, Why strategy
Onboarding can reveal strategic gaps. Questions about membership, access, responsibilities and sign off often show where governance needs to be made explicit.
One concrete example of where the gap shows up came from a recent exercise. We set out to put together an onboarding document for new Node members. Something that should, in principle, be straightforward. In practice, it surfaced a number of questions we did not have clear answers to.
One example of these question is: ‘who actually counts as a Node member?’ With two organisations involved, the boundaries are less obvious than they used to be. Then there were the practical questions around formalities like ‘is there anything a new member is expected to sign, and if so, what?’ Access rights raised a similar set of questions: ‘which systems and resources should a new member get access to, and at what point in the onboarding process?’ And around all of that, the governance questions of ‘who can request access on someone’s behalf, who actually grants it, and who signs it off?’
The onboarding document begins to answer some of the questions above by defining the membership criteria, integration expectations, required accounts and access to resources, and newcomer’s responsibilities.
To become a member, a newcomer must be employed at one of the organisations comprising the Node and/or be involved in at least one ELIXIR Platform, Community, Focus Group, service/tool, or associated project. A newcomer should then be assigned a senior mentor for the first three months, who introduces the newcomer, adds them to the membership list, and arranges a welcome presentation covering ELIXIR structure, ongoing projects, contribution guidance, Code of Conduct and the Handbook of Operation.
New members are then added to the ELIXIR Luxembourg mailing list, have their account created and are given access to relevant workspaces. In turn, they are expected to attend and actively participate in relevant meetings, contribute to collaborative tasks and engage in line with the ELIXIR Code of Conduct and Community Handbook.
A Node strategy, with the governance and roles part properly worked out, would have given us something to anchor the onboarding document to rather than building the document and discovering the gaps along the way. For now, the work done on the document can also highlight the remaining gaps and questions that the strategy could help answer.