DMW org structure

[Obsydian]

Both smilo and Galatoni make good points.

I guess it wouldn't hurt to start looking around and try and suss out who is out there and who appear to be in sync with us with regards to ethos and aims in the game, and sound out if they would be open to hooking up in game at some point.

But, we also need to work out our own structure before we can join with anyone else.  We need to set up our own High Command, and assign and fill roles, with the most important ones being the diplomats who are authorised to speak on behalf of the org and agree alliances and their terms.

Do we have any recruitment officers?  Ideally two or three people that players in-game can chat to before applying to join.  I suspect that when the game goes live, there will be quite an element of 'churn' in membership, and new blood will become very important in order to keep in-game numbers up.

Then there's our internal structure that will need some thinking about. E.g. do we want/need separate divisions that cater for different aspects of the game, such as industrial, logistics, security, trade, etc.?  If so, then we will need people to head these up and be responsible for policies, recruitment and administration.

How about technical officers, responsible for web sites, forums, chat rooms, teamspeak, etc?

Lastly, what style of leadership are we going for? Democratic? Authoritarian?

Much of this may be of importance to any potential ally.

Definitely a lot to be thinking about...

[smilodon]

Good point. I think it's about getting a good balance between having an identity and a structure against giving players the freedom to try different stuff and explore the game and roles available. We've created guilds many times in the past for a variety of MMO's so I'm confident we can work out something that will work well for us. I'm sure Oldie is hard at work by the pool coming up with different ideas and Organisational structures for us to think about

[Galatoni]

I'm happy to just be a part of it. Going to be an exciting year!

[Chaosphere]

Obsydian's post makes me really quite excited, as that level of depth and organisation would be pretty special.

I volunteer myself for the role of Chief Medical Officer (full NHS salary required).

:norty:

[Galatoni]

Just throwing in some ideas to test the water. What would people consider to a 'military' themed approach? VERY basic ranks and sections? I ran a fleet in Star Trek and it seemed to work using the three branches as paths, with a separate branch of the fleet admin roles (recruitment etc). It wasn't done as a means to say someone is better than anyone else (indeed - removed someone for that) just where there interests lie and where people should look for instruction (training) or for team building.

As the ships roles become more pronounced, we'll know which specialists should make up a team - but knowing what people are looking for now would be helpful when building it later.

[TeaLeaf]

Historically, most orgs can really only count on fielding approx 10% of their number at any one time, so for a group of our size, the average number of people who will be online at any one time will be about 5.  I'm not yet sure whether or not that's enough to do most things, and we'll have to wait until we get multiplayer ships and the PU before we can judge any further.

Being able to field 20 to 30 people would be great, and having listened to CR's explanations of how instancing is going to work, I now cautiously believe that it will work very well and give us an approximation of what we would like.  If it turns out that we do need those sorts of numbers, then we will need to either increase our own membership to around 250+ or join up and work closely with other orgs of a similar size.

For me, the conclusion that I'm coming to is that, whether we join/start an alliance or not, we need to increase our membership, if not simply to be able to achieve objectives then to increase our enjoyment of being able to hop on and playing among friends

It also strikes to the heart of our own structure.  As Obsydian said, if only 10% of our number are online (typically) then we have 5 people to play with.  Having a structure with say 5 different divisions (e.g. Escort/Bounty Hunting, Exploration, Resources, Logistics and Racing) might mean you are close to the only one online in your division, so having access to greater numbers might be a good option.

Alliance ~ a relationship based on similarity of interests, nature, or qualities.

Being part of an alliance gives us an option to play with other like-minded people and I think we should take it as read that we'd not join any alliance where we did not get that level of comfort.

When Oldbloke is back from his hols I'm sure he'll pitch in, but we need to remember that size has an impact on structure.  

The other question to ask yourself is which 'wing' ( or 'box') do you want to be put into and be labelled with?   I've tried coming up with lists of wings/divisions and I always end up concluding that I would want to be in more than one.  But each wing needs a certain critical mass, so flexibility within the structure is needed to allow that cross-wing membrship for an org of our size.

Regarding the ranks/structure, we could use a military one but we're not a PMC, so why not something less austere, like a corporate structure?  At the moment we're severely restricted anyway as the number of ranks allowed within an org is inadequate for any proper organisational structure.  If we used the military analogy we'd not even manage to get up to an RSM before running out of ranks!

[Galatoni]

Stone masons?

[albert]

In terms of recruitment, could we not do with actually polling the community to see who is actually playing and active on the RSI forums from dMw and those individuals help to recruit? I suspect few people are actually engaged too deeply at this point other than occasionally dropping by to check if the game has progressed much since their last login. I do however hope that 1.1 will bring a flourish of new alpha interest.

[Obsydian]

When Oldbloke is back from his hols I'm sure he'll pitch in, but we need to remember that size has an impact on structure.  

The other question to ask yourself is which 'wing' ( or 'box') do you want to be put into and be labelled with?   I've tried coming up with lists of wings/divisions and I always end up concluding that I would want to be in more than one.  But each wing needs a certain critical mass, so flexibility within the structure is needed to allow that cross-wing membrship for an org of our size.

Regarding the ranks/structure, we could use a military one but we're not a PMC, so why not something less austere, like a corporate structure?  At the moment we're severely restricted anyway as the number of ranks allowed within an org is inadequate for any proper organisational structure.  If we used the military analogy we'd not even manage to get up to an RSM before running out of ranks!

We definitely need more members in order for us to work as a cohesive unit within another organisation (i.e. Alliance) as well as to give us structure.

As for organisation structure, I think the ranks are probably OK as I'm sure that anything more than 6 ranks would start to become unwieldy, and the 4 roles should be enough to cover most situations.

Personally I would propose that we use a corporate analogy, and, to use a phrase employed by my last EVE corporation, run the org as a 'benevolent dictatorship', meaning that, on the whole, the org is self-governing (within a specific parameters) but that when push comes to shove, the CEO has complete and final say over what the org does or doesn't do - no arguments.

Suggested Roles:
Founder = CEO
Officer = Director
Recruitment = Recruitment Officer
Marketing = Public Relations Officer

Suggested Ranks:
5 = CEO (Founder - only one)
4 = Director (Officer/Recruitment/Marketing)
3 = Head of Operations (Recruitment)
2 = Manager (no roles, maybe Recruitment)
1 = Consultant (no roles)
0 = Trainee (no roles)

Using this structure, we can have multiple divisions, with someone heading up each division (Head of Operations); consultants can belong to a main division, but can also fill in in any other division when not specifically tasked with duties in their own division.  This gives people flexibility to try out other roles without being forced to stay in a role they don't like or don't feel suited to.

The CEO and Directors form the Senior Management/Board and are responsible for all policies, procedures and decisions with regards to the organisation, and can have roles that allow them some level of control over the organisation.  This would be purely optional, and the core roles can be reserved for a select few Directors.

Recruitment could be handled by one or more Directors, alternatively, each Division Head could be responsible for recruitment for their division, performing interviews and handling applications; or they could delegate the recruitment to a trusted Manager.

Consultants are the general populace of the organisation and will form the bulk of the labour force.

Trainees have absolutely no roles or responsibilities and consist of new members who have been with the organisation for 6 months or less.  There may be qualifying criteria set which Trainees need to complete in order to progress to Consultant status.

These are just my rambling thoughts on the subject for the powers that be to do with as they wish.  Use them or throw them away, I won't be offended.

[Galatoni]

I disagree that numbers mean we can work as a cohesive unit. A single fighter can be a suitable deployed asset. However in the context of sc it's likely that a single marine would suffice. Appropriate leaders would obviously make sense. But perhaps something more akin to a clan. Representatives are seated in a council who voice their sub sections opinions. It would be easier to manage and build on as numbers increase.

[Penfold]

While I appreciate the thoughts and comments herein, I must point out that we do have a structure in place for the running of every game we support. It's been the same since our inception in 1996 and remains thus.

It's the job of the Game Leader to decide on the hierarchical structure they want to establish in-game and that's what we follow. They are solely responsible for appointing their admins/officers and it's down to them to decide how the game will run, who they chose to help manage it and what system they choose.

OldBloke has been appointed as GL for this and it's his call as to how he will manage it. That said, he is very much a 'benevolent dictator' and there's no one I'd rather have heading this up as he's probably the most respected (and aged :flirty:) member we have. I'm sure however he resolves to run it will be fair and suitable. He's had enough RL experience running teams to know how to utilise people and resources to best advantage.

Please note he's currently away in sunnier climes and I'm sure he'll input when he's back, digest all your thoughts and proposals and decide on how best to proceed.

From a Community POV, there is a huge amount of interest around this game and we're delighted that so many people are as excited as we are about it.

:thumbsup2:

PEN.

Ps. Please don't take this as dissuasion from continuing your comments, I just wanted to make it clear that we have a system and a process in place which will ultimately decide how we proceed.

[TeaLeaf]

I think that there are a lot of good ideas in this thread (and the other) that will give OB a lot to review once he has ceased his piña colada splurge!

Agreed with the Corporate ranks Obsydian!

[Obsydian]

In terms of recruitment, could we not do with actually polling the community to see who is actually playing and active on the RSI forums from dMw and those individuals help to recruit? I suspect few people are actually engaged too deeply at this point other than occasionally dropping by to check if the game has progressed much since their last login. I do however hope that 1.1 will bring a flourish of new alpha interest.

I'm fairly active on the forums and play Arena Commander with some non-dMW friends on a semi-regular basis, and will gladly bump the org thread occasionally.  Maybe it could do with an update?

I'd also be happy to put up a post about the LAN party in April if you guys are happy to host another Star Citizen Meetup for non-dMw fans.

It would be great to start getting some dMw co-op going in Arena Commander (it's quite playable right now) and with that activity, maybe a few more will get involved. I'd be up for regular Friday and/or Saturday night battles.

With 1.1 bringing us FPS, do you think that dMw members that are not currently into SC but are avid FPS fans will start to get interested in the game?

[TeaLeaf]

I've been guilty of avoiding AC until 1.1, but I really should get back online and running with it. Any particular night you play coop Obsydian?

Sent from my Nexus 5 using Tapatalk

[albert]

I'm certainly up for co-op on a weekend evening. Got my new PC for exactly that.