[Inpycon] PyCon India Leadership

[Noufal Ibrahim]

On 2018-01-15 04:53, Anand Chitipothu wrote:
[..]
> Given that he has led the conference for couple of years already and
> given the mood around, I think it is better for new people take the
> leadership and run the conference.

I agree. I think it's a good idea to delegate more rather than 
centralise the way the conference is run. That way, the amount of work 
each of the individual people have to do will be limited to some spurts. 
There will be some crunch on the dates near to the conference but that's 
natural.

If we can break down the overall responsibilities into some areas (e.g. 
sponsorships, CFP, Venue and food, etc.), and put have one person in 
charge of each one of these with enough power to make decisions, then 
the conference chair needs only to speak to these heads and not manage a 
large number of people. The thing can go on more smoothly then and no 
single person becomes indispensable.

Sponsorships, CFPs etc. could be people from anywhere. Teams handling 
VEnue/food/AV equipment etc. will have to be mostly from Bangalore for 
practical reasons.

If we can organise something like this by the end of the month, I think 
it should be doable.

One sombre point. While this is the 10th anniversary and everyone is 
looking forward to be it being "awesome", this development has been like 
a spanner thrown in the works. Scaling the whole thing down a little and 
just running a good conference should, IMHO, be the priority rather than 
celebrating the 10th anniversary.

On a personal note, this year is an especially hectic one for me for 
professional and personal reasons. My involvement therefore, will have 
to be limited. However, I can help out with speaking to people, 
coordinating things on the list as my time allows. One of the real 
responsibilities of the conference chair is to make sure that the buck 
stops with him or her 
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buck_passing#%22The_buck_stops_here%22). 
That's a huge responsibility and not one which I'm in a position to take 
up.

So, to take things forward, I think we should

1. Scope out the general areas which need separate leadership.
2. Find people to lead those areas
3. Find a person who's willing to be the chair
4. Make a calendar and move things forward.