Working Group Guidelines

OARC working groups (WG) are the primary method by which our organization achieves its goals and addresses issues related to the creation of an open, interoperable AR Cloud ecosystem.

Ideally, WGs will quickly and collaboratively produce insightful, meaningful, highly-respected results. Deliverables of WGs include identification, clarification and/or resolution of specific technical, policy and other critical issues. They will publish via OARC channels and share publicly, without limits, resources, approaches, solutions and establish standards as needed in collaboration with OARC members and related organizations.

Setting up Working Groups for success:

WGs have a much higher chance of doing great things if the members work together as effective teams. We believe following the recommendations resulting from the multi-year “Project Aristotle” study inside Google could be a good starting point for achieving that.

Google found that there were five key dynamics that set successful teams apart from other teams.

Psychological safety: Can we take risks on this team without feeling insecure or embarrassed?
Dependability: Can we count on each other to do high quality work on time?
Structure & clarity: Are goals, roles, and execution plans on our team clear?
Meaning of work: Are we working on something that is personally important for each of us?
Impact of work: Do we fundamentally believe that the work we’re doing matters?

Startup procedure for becoming a WG member:

To join or participate in forming a WG, one has to be a member of OARC and must execute the OARC agreement which defines handling of Intellectual Property and Code Of Conduct and return the signed agreement electronically before participating in any official WG activities. The document will be downloadable from our website.

Inaugural WG meetings:

When a sufficient number of OARC members have, through our survey, or through other ways of collecting a group of signatories, formally declared their interest in forming and participating in a particular WG, OARC will arrange for a date for the interested members to hold an inaugural meeting. Since OARC is a global organization the members will likely attend the meeting using internet-based tools such as video conferencing solutions to be provided by OARC for this purpose. Also, OARC will make sure there is a slack channel for each new WG where the members can communicate in written form.

OARC will provide a handout to the WGs with some general information regarding our WGs policies and procedures as well as some question to be answered by the initial WG meeting participants.

Along with the handout, OARC will also provide a list of all those who offered their candidacy to sit on the Working Group Council (WGC) of that WG. It will also be possible for participants to offer their candidacy during the initial meeting. In any case: If the total number of candidates for the WGC does not exceed the maximum number of 12 seats the WGC can be formed by the initial meeting without an election.

These are the items that must be be on the agenda for the inaugural meeting:

Elect a person to write down minutes of the initial meeting (most likely to be nominated as the WG Secretary)
Introduction round of the attendees
Reviewing the proposed charter and goals that OARC’s Governing Board has provided for the WG
Setting the scope for the WGs initial work, including any realistic delivarbles
Gathering responses from all the attendees on all the questions in the WG handout
If there are more candidates than 12 for the WGC the participants must try to find a time and date within the next 2 weeks when the members can convene (online) to cast a vote on which of the members will form the WGC of that WG.

OARCs Governing Board has proposed initial charters and goals of each WG. The members who are present at the initial WG meeting will start by reviewing and enhancing or clarifying the draft charter together and consider amendments or even significant changes as needed.

The WG members should define and commit to the sound and reachable short terms goals on which the members will work together. These should be the first steps towards bigger goals in the future that help fulfills the WG charter in particular and OARC, in general.

The WGC members must find a time and date within 30 days after its formation to hold the first WGC meeting where they shall elect the first Chair, co-Chair and Secretary. They should also decide if they should ask the Governing Board for permission to modify the WG charter.

Collaboration between the WGC and the General Members

Contributions to the work and activities of a WG are expected and welcomed from all the members whether they are general members or they hold seats in the WGC. We encourage participants to meet as frequently as possible and contribute often and clearly. The WGC members are responsible for the way the whole WG operates and has a special responsibility to review and prepare the output of the WG according to proper procedures and through the correct channels.

Coordination between WGs

It is important that WGs work effectively towards the same goals to help fulfill the mission of OARC. We would like to avoid unnecessary duplication of efforts and to ensure that different WGs don’t end up producing conflicting or incompatible solutions and recommendations. Therefore, a continuous effort to coordinate and synchronize the activities of WGs will be made. It will be a special responsibility of the members of the WGCs to help in OARC coordination activities. OARC intends to have an “OARC Working Group Coordinator” to facilitate coordination activities.

WG Mission:

Identify and communicate relevant:

Issues - challenges facing functionality, interoperability, scalability, financial viability, safe usages,
Resources - people, data, software, solutions, standards, partners, platforms, technologies, strategies
Reviewing existing solutions - commercial/available, commercial/coming, research, technologiese proposed charter and goals that OARC’s Governing Board has provided for the WG
Standards - existing technical and legal standards that can be used, adapted, referenced

WG Output:

WGs will:

Regularly report activities and status to the Governing Board.
Create, maintain and publish a list of issues, challenges and goals, tasks and actions to address main issues
Identify, catalog and publish relevant resources, commercial products, platforms, approaches, research, proposals and standards (into a standardized google doc WG space)
Create and update a schedule of activities with relevant events

General WG Principles/Strategies:

Tangible, Actionable, Meaningful Results
Open, transparent, democratic:
- communicate/publish a list of participants, minutes, issues, resources, solutions, proposals
Practical, Useful, Benefiting the largest possible audience
Produce High Visibility Results Communicated through official and other relevant community channels
Clear Differentiation between DRAFT and Adopted Positions/Policies/Standards
Utilize industry events to meet privately (do work) and publicly at the events (sessions/etc) to educate, solicit input, publish results