Below is a rough outline of some discussions the ERC has had about how the NomCom might be selected. I want to stress that this is a DRAFT for discussion and not a final plan. Please give us your thoughts on this.

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The purpose of the Nominating Committee (NomCom) is to select the slate of candidates for the election for the PASS Board of Directors.

The NomCom shall be comprised of 5 voting members:

1. The PASS Immediate Past President (IPP) leads the NomCom
2. 1 PASS Board member
3. 3 PASS volunteers (non-Board)
4. PASS Executive Manager (Judy) and/or PASS Election Supervisor (Hannes) as non-voting

The Board will determine how they select their member.

The potential pool (aka “the pool”) of PASS Volunteers is comprised of PASS Volunteers including chapter leadership, regional mentors, program committee, VC committees and speakers (Summit, Rally, SQLSaturday, 24HoP), event organizers (Rally, SQLSaturday, 24HoP) or other organization-wide volunteer roles. Inclusion in this pool will be determined based on who is the respective mailing lists. Please note we are probably going to have gaps as don’t consistently maintain mailing lists for all these groups. We’re still working through the detailed logistics behind this.

An email will be sent to this group describing this process and giving them an opportunity to opt-out of future mailing for the NomCom. That won’t affect their participation in any future PASS events – they are only opting out of the NomCom process for this year. We feel that if you’ve taken the time to volunteer at PASS through one of these mechanisms you should be willing to receive and single email about the NomCom process.

People in “the pool” will be eligible to fill the three volunteer slots on the NomCom and will vote on the three slots.

Interested candidates self-nominate by emailing HQ a brief bio and stating their interest. We may have them post in a forum instead. This list of interested candidates and their bios are placed on the election web site.
A ballot will go out to the pool with *all* the self-nominated candidates. This may be five people or it may be 500 people. The candidates will be listed in the other their application was received.

No candidate may serve on the NomCom.

The top three vote-getters receiving 10 or more votes are selected for the NomCom. Ties are determined based on the order your application was received at HQ. The choice of the IPP is the second tie breaker. If there are open slots after this the IPP will screen candidates in vote and tie breaker order until the NomCom is full. If you can’t find 10 people who think you’ll do a good job then we reserve the right to screen you. If there are open slots after this the IPP will appoint NomCom members from the membership to fill the NomCom. Any screening process will be left up to the IPP.

The Board approves the final NomCom. This serves as a check against any appointments that the IPP has to make. If the Board fails to approve the NomCom, the Board will make a public statement as to the reason and the process will start again.

Any vacancies prior to the start of candidate interviews will be filled in vote order. Any potential NomCom member below 10 votes may be screened by the IPP and excluded based on that screening. Any vacancies after that point will not be filled unless the NomCom falls below three people.

No person may serve on the NomCom two years in a row.

There must be three people present for any phone interviews with candidates or those interviews must be rescheduled. We’re still working on what to do if the interview can’t be scheduled in a two week window. We haven’t had this happen yet but I’m sure it will eventually.

Two things stick out to me in this

1. If Judy or hannes want to sit through the interviews in an official secretary role I think that's ok but, if either of them is going to participate in the q&a I think that may be a mistake. Don't get me wrong I like both of them and everything but, that would appear to be a bit of a conflict of interest since they are in essence employed by pass not to mention it would tilt the balance of the committe's discussion more towards the existing board

2. If the nom com is going to do any real form of vetting and we're going to expect the candidates to give their time, the least the committee can do is all be in attendance. This is a self nominated role and a 2(or3) week commitment, if you can't manage the time required you probably shouldn't serve. On the other hand, everyone will need to be as flexible as possible to make this work, and a last minute cancellation or two is bound to happen.

Otherwise, I think this is a good first step, thanks for everyones time in prepping this

First off, thanks for putting in the time to keep us informed on the nom committee workings. This type of information gives us all the ability to learn how PASS works behind the scenes.
Concerns: Does the board approve the whole nom com in mass or selectively? I think the board must approve or disapprove the whole nom com so there is no potential to stack the committee.
Non-voting members should not count as the three people required for the interviews. The interviews need to be conducted by the people who are going to vote for them

PLEASE NOTE:

Bill is suggesting changes to the current process. That is the ERC's mission.

The process used in 2010 can be found on the PASS Elections site: http://elections.sqlpass.org/Documents.aspx

Hope that helps!

Hannes Bezuidenhout
PASS HQ - Governance

A couple of thoughts regarding the quorum for interviews:

1. In response to Allen's comments, given the constraints of a two week window to interview, the time zones involved to have representatives beyond just the US, and the number of potential candidates to interview, I can almost guarantee that some interviews would need to be missed. If a NomCom member is THAT dedicated to PASS, then perhaps they should be running for the Board

2. I agree that the quorum should consist of voting members of the NomCom; obviously the non-voting members should be involved in the process, but there need to be voting members involved in every interview. What I am concerned about is the case of the abstains versus a split decision; if you have two voting members miss an interview and they abstain from voting and you have a split decision, is a simple majority enough to carry the nominee forward (or not)? In other words, does a 2-1-2 decision mean the same as a 2-1-0 decision?

I'm curious about the two year restriction; why limit the Nom Com to only 1 year of successive service?

I think the proposed proportion of Board members vs. non-Board members is a positive change.

With regard to the pool of people eligible for (and voting on) the NomCom: I don't think that a person who has only been a speaker at an event should be eligible for this responsibility. This is not to in any way minimize the important contributions speakers make, but I don't think speaking at an event gives a person much insight into what it takes to be a board member or much understanding of the overall needs of PASS.

I do think casting a wide net for people who have served PASS in some organizational capacity to serve on the NomCom is a good idea.

@DaveShutlz, The Board will vote to approve the whole NomCom. Obviously if we don't approve it we'll provide guidance as to why. Non-voting members aren't going to count for anything. I probably should have just left them out. I mainly want them to sit in and offer support if asked.

@StuartA, good point on the timeline. We'll have to think about that and the number of people that make it to the interview.

@Denise, I'm with you on the people that are only speakers. That's something I would certainly like to look more closely at. Preach it loud! Convince the rest of the ERC! Rally the community to your side! You go!

These are positive steps and I do not want to disparage the work of the all-volunteer Elections Review Committee (ERC).

I have a single metric when it comes to PASS elections reform: Will these changes allow qualified leaders - like Steve Jones - to make the PASS Board slate from now on? For this change, the answer is no. Process wasn't the problem last year. Execution was the problem. You can't fix poor execution with a better process.

I advocate disbanding the NomCom and trusting the PASS community. Try it once and see if any of the "boogey-man" scenarios develop. If they do, have the Board manage them - preferably transparently.

Is the ERC allowed to challenge the existence of the NomCom? Have they been told the NomCom *must* exist going forward? Or is everything truly on the table?

Andy

I have the same question as Stuart, why disallowing two consecutive years on the NomCom? Term limits may be a good idea, but one year only seems a little extreme.

Andy, one of the questions we struggled with is how do you whittle down the number of candidates to a reasonable number. If you think about the NomCom selection process proposed, we could have 500 people throwing their name into the hat. Do we expect that? No. But if what if there were 50? That's still a lot. Now think about the ballot with all those names. It makes more sense to take that hit during the NomCom than during the election itself. If there are too many candidates, then it's very easy to see folks say, "That ballot is impossibly long. Forget it." Then we're back to square one.

And keep in mind that we're not the only ones doing this. After all, look at what is required to run for political office. There are always requirements to reduce the number of candidates to a reasonable number. Some would say this is exclusive, but the reality is if we put forth an eye chart of candidates, there will be very few votes.

OK Bill, I'll make one more point about the eligibility for the NomCom. Based on how it's presented now we could have a NomCom where all three non-Board slots are filled with people whose only volunteer contribution has been speaking at an event. No chapter leaders, no national committee experience, no Virtual Chapter leaders. That would be less representative that what we have now.

If "only" speaking is going to qualify for NomCom service, then we should consider a quota system: on NomCom member from the chapter leaders, one from some national level committee (Program, 24HOP, SQLRally) and one "at large" (can be anyone in the pool of applicants.)

@Denise Not that I disagree with you, but I'm wondering why you're having concerns about the qualifications of "just speakers" to be on the NomCom. I have my suspicions, but I don't want to put words in your mouth.

" If you can’t find 10 people who think you’ll do a good job then we reserve the right to screen you " - this sentence needs to be clarified; who is we? ("You" should also refer to the nom com, obviously).

Posted By Stuart Ainsworth on 24 Feb 2011 09:00 AM
" If you can’t find 10 people who think you’ll do a good job then we reserve the right to screen you " - this sentence needs to be clarified; who is we? ("You" should also refer to the nom com, obviously).

The Immediate Past President, who is head of the NomCom, will determine the screening process (it's in the proposal a couple of sentences from this quote).

Posted By Denise McInerney on 24 Feb 2011 08:12 AM
OK Bill, I'll make one more point about the eligibility for the NomCom. Based on how it's presented now we could have a NomCom where all three non-Board slots are filled with people whose only volunteer contribution has been speaking at an event. No chapter leaders, no national committee experience, no Virtual Chapter leaders. That would be less representative that what we have now.

If "only" speaking is going to qualify for NomCom service, then we should consider a quota system: on NomCom member from the chapter leaders, one from some national level committee (Program, 24HOP, SQLRally) and one "at large" (can be anyone in the pool of applicants.)

We talked about a quota system but while it sounds good in principle, it's a nightmare in practice. Case in point, we're struggling to maintain a good list of chapter leaders (and this is from my perspective as a regional mentor). Volunteer at some national committee level, well, how much? Just have the name on the committee? 5 hours of experience? At the end of the day you're going to exclude someone you wouldn't want to and didn't mean to, which is why it's worded the way it is.

Keep in mind it also says, "organization-wide volunteer roles." If a chapter is an official PASS chapter, that's part of the organization. So if someone is serving as a treasurer at a PASS chapter (a scenario brought up by one of the committee members) and the majority of folks outside of that particular chapter don't know who that person is, that person is still included. It gives folks who want to make a difference for PASS in this way a chance to put their hat into the ring even if they aren't well known and even if they don't have the time to serve on another committee AND the NomCom. After that, they still have to get folks to vote for them, though.

And that's really where the balancing factor is. The PASS membership is choosing the members of the NomCom. What we're saying there is we are trusting the members of PASS to do a good job for the future of the organization. If we can't trust the members to do this, then there's no point at having a vote at any level.

I like the proposed makeup of the committee. I'm not sure that there is a need for a community vote to pick the community members for the NomCom, the issue that people have had with elections has not been the way the nominating committee has been selected, but the "closed" process. Making the process more transparent and the NomCom composition weighted to community members vs. board members I think will help the perception of the process.

Regarding not serving two years in a row...

That's something we added toward the end. The thinking there is to try and get variety. Once you've served, give someone else a chance. New people will bring a new perspective and suggest further changes to the process.

Personally, I'm not wedded to the idea. Others on the NomCom feel stronger about it. What do the rest of you think?

As recently as last month, I was in favor of the idea of a NomCom. That's changed, mainly because of the overhead. I've come to believe these things:

1. The amount of overhead required to create, administer, and maintain it seems... excessive. I think that's a clue.
2. The NomCom selection process - and the election process - are fine. Last year's issues were execution issues. You can't fix execution with more process. If anything, you need less process - which leads me to my last point:
3. The NomCom isn't needed. Brian makes an excellent point:

What we're saying there is we are trusting the members of PASS to do a good job for the future of the organization. If we can't trust the members to do this, then there's no point at having a vote at any level.

Either trust the membership or just appoint who the Board wants for directors.

Andy

@AndyL Im assuming that who is on the nom com is just the first step in the reforms the ERC is going to propose? meaning: I hope there are other changes coming down the pipe with relation to the execution issues in previous nom coms perhaps someone on the ERC can clarify that.

@Stuart your 2-1-0 vs 2-1-2 vote example is exactly why I think every person should go to every interview. If there needs to be more time in the process for that to happen, add more time. it would seem to me that it would be difficult to deny someone from the pool a spot if they werent heard by anyone but those on the NomCom who dont agree with them?

Since the Nom com is going to be such a small group of people working together Im ok with limiting it to no back to back service years, It would allow fresh eyes on the subject, etc.

@Andy, as usual, I agree with some of your thoughts but arrive at a different conclusion

I agree that the overhead to create, administer, and maintain does seem a tad excessive, and I hope that the ERC can find ways to simplify the process; however, I think that there has to be a mid point between a straight vote by the membership and too many layers of bureacracy. I could be wrong, but that's my hope.

@AndyL (and Allen K!) - Yes, we have a whole host of items we are considering, debating, belaboring, etc. I doubt it will be perfect in the end, but it should be a huge improvement overall at the very least. We need to move forward with a NomCom placement plan first, then we will be tackling what and how the NomCom will be doing to create a slate of candidates. I also went back and forth on whether or not a NomCom was necessary. I now agree that it's something we want to keep as part of the process, for the reasons stated by others above.

@Stuart (and Allen again - I personally have been of the opionion that if you agree to serve on the NomCom, then you agree to present and accounted for unless something seriously prevents you from participating. Meaning: yes, every single person should be in attendance for the interviews. With a small group of people, I still feel this is realistic, but others on the ERC do not and have tried to build in tolerance in case of absences.

As far as the "only one year" limit, I think it keeps the group from becoming a repeatable mindset and allows for new ideas and observations by those agreeing to participate.

@Denise - Honestly, I was also against the "speakers" being included. Realistically, I believe that if people have only ever spoken at one SQL Saturday, then they aren't going to be interested in serving the organization in a NomCom capacity anyway - then, who will vote for them?

@Jack - Many of us are advocating for clearer goals, metrics and reasonable transparency. As more of our ideas are released, I think you'll be happy to see what we've come up with.

Thank you all for chiming in on this portion! We value your feedback and please encourage others to comment as well. We have dedicated a lot of hours already to this important task and we want to at least get it more right than before.