This article is an English translation of "持続可能なコミュニティ運営を目指して〜Amplify Japan User Group 2023年の運営体制改善" which was originally published in Japanese.
Hi, I'm @ikenyal, AWS Community Builder, AWS User Group Leaders and Amplify Japan User Group Steering Member. I work as an EM at GENDA Inc. and as a Director, CTO at ZINE INC.
My focus as an AWS Community Builder, in addition to my day job and side business, is the management of the Amplify Japan User Group. In this article, I would like to introduce the efforts I have made to improve the management system of Amplify Japan User Group in 2023. We will introduce some of the challenges that arise and how we are trying to maintain sustainability of the community organization, which is not a business, but a group of volunteers.
If you are wondering "What is AWS Community Builder? please also refer to this article 挑戦権は誰にでもある、日本からもAWS Community Buildersを目指してみよう (in Japanese)!
Community Management Features and Issues
Community management differs from that of a typical company in that it is a volunteer-based organization. The members of the management team have their own day jobs, side jobs, and private lives, but they also participate in the management activities as volunteers.
Therefore, unlike a job, it is not mandatory, and there will be a need to have each individual work in his or her own spare time. This is a feature and a potential problem for the continuity of community management.
In fact, the Amplify Japan User Group also experienced issues due to this problem, and there was a period of stagnation in its activities. This stagnation resulted in a lack of meetups and community improvement activities, and the growth of the community itself stagnated and eventually declined.
To stem the tide, the Amplify Japan User Group has redesigned its management structure this year.
We focus on maintaining the continuity of the management system, as well as the community itself. We believe that if this is maintained, community activities will naturally continue and be activated.
Organizational Problems in the Amplify Japan User Group
In the Amplify Japan User Group, the change in community management from an AWS-driven state to a community-driven state was one of the reasons for the stagnation of the management structure.
Until the community was able to stand on its own, AWS employees took the lead in organizing the meetups. However, as the community gradually becomes established, there is a need to switch to community-led management at some point. Of course, while switching the initiative, AWS employees will continue to provide support.
The timing was right for the Amplify Japan User Group around 2021, and while we continued to host the event, we changed the name of the event to the current "Amplify Boost Up" and tried to steer the event toward community-driven activities.
However, at that time, we did not make any major changes to the operation structure or mechanism, but switched only close to the mindset of "let's keep the AWS employees' lead low key and let the rest of the operation members do their best".
COVID-19 was still having a large impact, and our activities were limited to holding ongoing online events and interacting with each other on Slack. Even in these limited activities, events were being held less frequently, and Slack was becoming more like a place to see bot posts, with almost no postings. The aforementioned mind-switching alone made it difficult to maintain that mind-switching, and the management tasks tended to remain static.
After such a period of time, in 2023, we decided to restart the operation of the event, and since the onslaught of COVID-19 had passed and the number of hybrid online/offline events was increasing, we decided to restart the community event as a hybrid event, and at the same time, we improved the operation of the event to avoid a similar situation. We restarted the event with an improved management system to avoid a similar situation.
Improvement of the management system for sustainable community management
In order to achieve sustainable community management, we have implemented several operational structure improvements, some of which are shown below as examples.
Clarification of management team members
Although it is a natural thing to do, we have again clarified the members of the management team.
Community management is solely a volunteer-based activity. Therefore, it should be allowed that there may be periods of inactivity due to work or personal circumstances. With this in mind, until then, people who were interested in the management would join the Slack channel where the management members gathered, and the management member management was close to just that. As a result, the situation became "There are many members in the Slack channel, but who are the members who are actually involved in the management and can share the tasks? The management members themselves were becoming unclear.
The adverse effects of this condition were the following events
- When someone asks for an opinion or reaction on Slack, we don't know if the unrespondent forgot to respond or is inactive and unwilling to respond, and we have to keep reminding them.
- This results in an atmosphere of "it seems okay not to respond".
- Since only a few more members of this obscure management team will be involved, there will be no sense of unity as a team.
In order to solve these problems, we have started to take inventory and clarification of the management members by periodically confirming their willingness to participate as management members once a year.
Leaving the operation is not a negative thing. Since work and personal situations change, by making it easier to express your intention to continue or stop as a management member each year, you can avoid the awkward situation where you are too busy to show up and participate in the management more easily.
Then, by constantly updating the management member ledger maintained within the operation, we were able to maintain that all members of the operation are Active.
Regularization of management meetings
The previous management organization did not have regular management meetings, but rather set them up as needed, such as prior to an event.
As a result, decision-making was not progressing during periods when meetings were not being held, although of course this could be done to some extent on Slack. This led to a vicious cycle in which events were not planned and the need for meetings declined.
If we are in a state of "no agenda," it could be an indication that there is nothing moving as a community. For this reason, we decided to make the management meeting a regular meeting, to be held monthly. In doing so, we have also established a mailing list of management members by clarifying the above-mentioned management members, and we send calendar invitations to the mailing list.
Management meetings, which tended to be held irregularly in the past, are now scheduled on a regular schedule, creating an opportunity to move forward as a community and a rhythm for such meetings. In addition, the act of checking everyone's schedule and setting up a meeting each time was expensive to coordinate. Therefore, being able to block each person's schedule in advance as a regular schedule has been very effective.
Maintenance of tools
The Amplify Japan User Group does not have a specific budget, so we need to make sure that the tools we use in our operations can be covered by free ones. In parallel with the organization of the regular meetings mentioned above, we also organized the tools. In addition, a ledger has been created by clarifying the members of the management team, and we are now organizing the tools, including their authorization.
Here are two examples of the tools we use.
Document management: GitHub
We need a management tool for documents used within the management team, such as management meeting memos and management member ledgers. Since we do not have a budget, We decided to use GitHub because it is free of charge regardless of the number of users to be invited, and because it can be set to be private.
The Amplify Japan User Group already had a GitHub Organization for use with source code for the community site and CFP for meetups. Therefore, while using GitHub's Free plan, we created a private repository for the management team, and we use GitHub Discussions in that repository to manage documents.
Until then, the base was based on the granting and revoking of privileges to related tools and mailing lists. Therefore, in addition to management of operating members, a ledger was maintained for tools, and the status of authorization grants was visualized.
In the above GitHub Discussions, "アナウンス" (it means "Announcements") places ledgers and other documents that should always be referenced.
Official community communication tool: Discord
One of the most significant tool maintenance changes was the switch from Slack to Discord as the communication tool in the community.
Due to a lack of budget, we could not afford a paid plan for Slack, and as a result, the past logs were hidden because it was a free version. To improve this situation, we switched from Slack to Discord.
Logs of questions and discussions within the community can now be utilized, including those from the past, as they are important community assets in themselves.
In addition to the above, we also use Google Group, YouTube, connpass, Slido, etc.
Improving the sense of unity among management members
The management team is engaged as volunteers, so they need some motivation to keep it going.
Of course, the community management activities themselves can be one of the achievements to be certified as AWS Community Builder or AWS User Group Leaders, and in fact, many AWS Community Builders and AWS User Group Leaders are on the management team.
However, this is the only situation in which each individual must feel motivation on their own. Therefore, it was not possible to create motivation derived from a sense of unity as a team of management members.
Therefore, we produced management T-shirts, although each member had to pay for his or her own T-shirt. Please note that the management members are wearing these T-shirts at the meetups.
Future community management
In community management, there are times when the workload is temporarily high, such as during events, but it is important to create a system and structure that will allow for continuous operation during normal times. This is because everyone involved has other jobs and private lives, and the community is made up of volunteer activities in addition to these.
How to create and maintain a lean and efficient management organization that is built on such good intentions is an important issue for the survival of the community.
The Amplify Japan User Group is now well organized, and I would like to contribute to the development of the community itself by further enhancing the sense of unity and motivation of the management as the finishing touch to the group.
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