VSHNeer Roles

A role is an area of responsibility (a Domain) that is delegated to an individual (the Role Keeper), who has autonomy to decide and act within the constraints of the role’s Domain.

role.drawio

There are two types of Roles at VSHN: Your Job (Main Role) and additional Roles.

Job (Main Role)

Every VSHNeer is hired for a specific role. This is your main role, your job.

Examples
  • Product Owner

  • DevOps Engineer

  • Agile Coach

Additional Roles

As VSHN consists of self-governing and self-organizing Teams and when deciding how to account for the Domain as a Team it might be needed for some VSHNeers to take on additional Roles. Such Roles are usually within one Domain and therefore also defined by the Team who’s accountable for the Domain. Additionally there might be a need for VSHN-wide roles, representatives, etc.

Additional Roles bring you more responsibility, which can mean that you’ve to do less in your other Roles, balancing this is crucial.

Examples of additional Roles at VSHN
  • Team Facilitator

  • Technology Alignment

  • Representative in a Delegate Circle

  • Delegator Representative

Becoming a member of other groups

At some point, you might want to or have to join other Work Groups or Interest Groups. With this you implicitly get an additional Role of Member of Group XYZ. Especially in this case, balancing the time investment between your Roles becomes crucial.

Voluntariness of Additional Roles

VSHN expects that people take on additional Roles when it’s useful, possible and needed. This is also part of our Salary System. In one way or the other selecting people for Roles happens with Consent Decision Making, for example by doing a Role Selection.

Possible implies that you can make time for it (Balancing) and have or can acquire the needed skills.

Balance Main Role vs Additional Roles

Time is limited, we all have to make the most of our time. Usually no one has time for additional tasks and responsibilities, you have to actively make time for them.

Taking on additional Roles must always be done in accordance with your main role and other additional Roles. That means you can’t just take on additional Roles and leave the work for your other Roles. Overall, the Main Role always comes first - that’s what we all were hired for.

On the other hand, taking on additional Roles and actually investing time can be crucial to VSHN’s success. For this, there are a few things to keep in mind:

  • With the Delegator of your main Role (usually your Team), decide and document how much time you can spare for your other Roles.

  • Together with the Delegator of your additional Roles (Team, Work Group, etc.), determine what the expectations are for your time commitment and document them (usually directly in the domain description of each role.)

There are Roles that need more time during bigger projects, organizational changes and similar undertakings. This makes time planning with your other Roles even more important.

Review your Roles regularly with the Delegator. If you are not keeping up with your tasks, talk to the Delegators of your Roles instead of leaving work or governance undone. When you can’t make time to account properly for your additional Role, you can’t keep the role (see Voluntariness.)

Roles can grow (responsibility and/or effort) or can be "big" right from the start, often it’s the better way to make a Main Role (a Job) out of them, instead of trying to find someone who can do it in addition to their main Role.