[foundation-board] Project Coordinator job description

Fri Aug 13 10:31:26 UTC 2010

Hi everyone

Really great to see you all yesterday. I've started work on the job
description for a putative project coordinator.

We need to discuss:

0) Have I captured all the skills we think we need from this person?
What's missing? What's there that shouldn't be? (it's very long...)
Have I got the facts in the first few paras right?

1) What salary can we offer? How many of the projects (ongoing and in
train) have a project manager budget which would fill the project
coordinator pot, and how much of our operating surplus are we willing
to put in for the Board reporting work?

2) What are the contractual terms we can offer?

3) Where will we advertise the position? Are we happy for this to
circulate around our networks, or do we want to pay for advertising
in, say the Guardian? ($$$!)

4) Who will take part in the interview process? Ian and I have already
volunteered, but I think Rufus also needs to be there, as he has the
best sense of what the job entails and will be the one working closest
with the successful candidate in the first few months. Who else wants
in?

Cheers

Becky

Begin job description//

OKFN Project Coordinator job description
----------------------------------------------------------

Founded in 2004, the Open Knowledge Foundation is a not-for-profit
organisation promoting open knowledge: that’s any kind of information
– sonnets to statistics, genes to geodata – that can be freely used,
reused, and redistributed.

We're community-driven and volunteers are behind everything we do -
our network extends to practitioners and experts in chemistry,
genetics, archaeology, linguistics, libraries and law. Our
infrastructure, software and expertise drives the government's open
data portal, data.gov.uk, as well as the public-spending analysis
tool, Where Does My Money Go? We maintain the legal license that
underpins the world's largest collaborative mapping project, Open
Street Map, as well as the servers that drive some of the UK's most
popular parliamentary transparency websites, TheyWorkForYou and
PublicWhip. As open knowledge rises up the political agenda across the
globe, the Open Knowledge Foundation has seized the opportunity to be
the front-running non-partisan partner organisation offering expert
advice to a range of actors, including institutions and governments
wondering how to open up their knowledge and data, campaigners for
transparency in state aid (famrsubsidy.org, IATI) and journalists
seeking to make sense of raw spending data released from government
(the Guardian).

Job Description

As the newly-created role of Project Coordinator, you will be responsible for:

*Undertaking direct project management on several ongoing legal,
technical and design projects where the OKF has direct funding from
partners and institutions (~x? to start):
  * Creating and executing project work plans and revising as
appropriate to meet changing needs and requirements.
  * Managing operational aspects of a project, liaising with a variety
of skilled contractors
  * Reviewing deliverables before passing to client, enforcing
standards, and maintaining relationship with partners
  * Minimizing the organisation's exposure and risk
  * Ensuring project documents are complete, current, and stored appropriately
  * Communicating project progress to the OKF community and wider public
  * Tracking and reporting team hours and expenses and managing project budget

*Maintaining an overview of all live projects where the OKF has direct
funding from partners and institutions
   * Liaising with project managers, keeping track of delivery
schedules, cashflow etc and in general making sure the organisation's
exposure to risk is minimised

*Reporting quarterly to Board of Directors
  * Liaising with the Chair's administrative assistant and the
Treasurer to prepare management accounts
  * Liaising with general counsel to flag potential legal issues
  * Working with the Coordination Committee Chair to prepare overview
report of network activities.

* Using overview of organisational activities to participate in
Coordination Committee meetings, a weekly forum for all projects
(funded and unfunded) to develop the direction of the OKF's work:
  * Spotting opportunities for different project groups to work
together, or to learn from each other's experiences
  * Highlighting and eliminating process duplication
  * Working with Committee Chair to review ongoing development of
Coordination Committee as a networked self-governing body.

*Contributing in an ad-hoc fashion to other organisational activities,
for example:
  * OKCon, the OKF's annual Spring conference
  * Fundraising

For the right candidate, the job offers the opportunity to work in a
growing, networked organisation with people who are leaders in their
respective fields and passionate about the organisation's mission. The
project coordinator is a new position, created in response to the
dramatic success of the OKF over the last year. In this sense, the
role is ripe for development, and the successful candidate will have a
considerable stake in defining it. The project coordinator will be
joining the OKF at a crucial time in its development, and will be
expected to hit the ground running.

OKF is and intends to remain a virtual organisation, with no physical
location/offices. As project coordinator, you would therefore be
expected to execute your duties remotely, and the Board is looking in
particular for examples which show that you are a self-starter.

The Project Coordinator will report directly to the Board at quarterly
Board meetings, and will be expected to be in regular contact with the
Coordination Committee chairman, General Counsel, Treasurer, and Chair
of the Board. Two other paid staff members, the Chair's administrative
assistant, and the Community Coordinator, should also be regular
contact points. Much of the work required of the project coordinator
is currently being handled by the Chair, and so the successful
candidate will be expected to work closely with the Chair in the first
few months after gaining the position to ensure a successful handover.

The role is permanent and full time, with a three month probationary
period and the opportunity to review the contract after one year.
Salary £x?

The successful candidate will have the following skills:

*Understanding of and passion for the mission of the Open Knowledge Foundation
*Self-motivated, ability to work remotely
*Comfortable in a volunteer-centred, consensus-driven, experimental environment
*Proven track record in efficient project management, preferably in a
technical setting
*Ability to work with a variety of people from all areas of life:
government, NGO sector, coders, designers, academics, volunteers
*Experience managing budgets
*Experience preparing management accounts
*Some fundraising skills desirable, both in academic and grant-giving
foundation context

To apply, please send a CV and covering letter to
project-coordinator at okfn.org by 30 September. Interview will be
conducted in Cambridge/London in the week beginning 11 October.

//ends