PASS Nominations Committee 2015

The Nominations Committee has done their job and the final report has been published.

Good luck to everyone running. Thank you for stepping up and taking part in this process.

This is the first time in a very long time that I don’t get to put out a “You should listen to me and vote for…” blog post. Since I’m on the board I feel more than a little squeamish coming out for any candidate. If I openly support Person Y over Person X, have I just yacked off all the supporters of Person X? Have I yacked off Person X? Most importantly, have I potentially poisoned a relationship that I need in order to be effective while on the Board? Add to that the fact that I was ask to serve on the Nominations Committee this year. Now I’ve been asked to sit in judgement of a number of people and declare their various fitness for the board. Yeah, no one is getting a nod for the election this year.

Instead, let’s talk about the Nominations Committee (NomCom) process. The members of the Committee are publicly announced. The process in support of the NomCom is also published. I was assigned volunteered to be on the NomCom as one of the Board representatives. Kidding. I was very happy to get to take part in it this year since I had just gone through it for the first time last year. The committee operation was great. Not surprising. Look at the people on the committee. We met a few times to be sure that everyone was acquainted with the rules of the election as well as each other. Then we scheduled interviews with the candidates that qualified based on the documentation in the process. We were able to read their applications ahead of time. The interview consisted of us taking turns asking questions. I kept notes of interesting answers, answers I liked, answers I didn’t, and used the notes to come up with my rating of each candidate (No, you can’t see the notes. I burned them and then scattered the ashes). From where I sat, the process was smooth and straight forward. It was a real pleasure to work with all the other committee members. I’m not blowing smoke here. We really had fun. Did I mention we kept a chat going through Skype during the interviews so that we knew who was asking which question next… and so we could have a little fun picking on each other (not the candidates, we are professionals). Evidently Grant and #2 seem to be connected in some fashion (you had to be there).

I honestly can’t think of any major process improvements I would suggest for next year. One minor change I’d like to see introduced is that the documentation we currently have conflates Management and Leadership. I think they’re different, very different, and should be graded differently. It’s a very minor change, but one I think that’s important.

In short, I think the PASS community was well served by the members. We asked tough questions of the people running for the board. Each and every one gave great answers. It’s the kind of experience and process you want to take part in as a volunteer.

Thank you to my fellow Committee members. You guys were great.