Improving the Onboarding Process

Web Developers
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This is a discussion on making it easier for people to join in, specifically focusing on web developers for the moment. Here’s some suggestions i received:

  1. improve your onboarding process. Create a short youtube video explaining the project - why, what, how. For all the volunteer Devs, set up a video conference using zoom.us or similar. The aim of the call is for you to get face-time with them, share your passion and seek commitment. Get everyone to tag an issue they will work on, get people to post on your forum with a their name and skillset. Introduce them to each other and tell them they are each other’s support network whilst they volunteer.

  2. Set some really clear, audacious goals so everyone can see where the project is going. OKRs are a good way of doing this. Set the KRs in such a way that it is clear to everyone where they can improve things to help achieve the OKR. For more on OKRs - check this video out: https://vimeo.com/86392023

  3. Regular comms to everyone who volunteered. Go for a newsletter style, so you don’t appear too pushy. Aim for 33% news about homelessness, 33% progress on the project (what have we achieved?) and 33% activities that desperately need volunteers to work on them.

  4. Schedule regular ‘live chat’ sessions for volunteers to come together. Make it sociable - celebrate and highlight successes - Cut a thank you video after each one and share it online - recognizing everyone’s contributions.

  5. create a short survey (eg survey monkey) for volunteers who have never really engaged after showing initial interest. Keep it light, and ask them to share why they didn’t follow up from their initial interest. Ask whether it was clear what was wanted of them, whether they had enough support, what would have helped them, what you could do to better support future volunteers & what if anything, would tempt them to volunteer in the future.

Also, we should have the Hero Hub up within 2 weeks. i’m building it as a place where members can list their skills and external professional links (linkedin, etc), and where employers can browse to see who has built what on our website

what are your thoughts? @ReactJS

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Hi Andy,

Looks like a solid plan there. Certainly agreed with the comms percentages. The live chat could be quite awkward, but if we can get a good percentage of the total volunteers attending, it would be useful.

Hero Hub sounds like a good idea - funnily enough I have a project with the same name!

I think the initial goal(s) of the project will be down to you, and we could expand on those and ensure they’re realistic goals, change wording if need be, and so on.

Personally, I think the design needs some word - we’d need to make it a clear UX, simple to navigate and find the resource(s) people want.

Billy

1 Like
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Sounds like a good plan.

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@AndyatFocallocal Do we have any update on this, and Jess’ input?

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@jesdaigle ?

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Hey @AndyatFocallocal,

Have we gotten anywhere with what we plan to do next?

Billy

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no progress. it looks like its just us 3 working on this