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Options for Dev in 2024

Options for Dev in 2024

Owned by Hanyuan Li (Unlicensed)
Last updated: Jul 23, 2023
4 min read

TL;DR: After separating out into two separate exec bodies and assigning roles to ourselves, we noticed that there were still some problems that aren’t solved in the current state of CSESoc (operating as “two societies” under one banner). These problems don’t completely stop us from doing the things we want to do, but they make running the society more difficult at all levels (even if they might not be as visible at the director/subcom level).

After discussing amongst Main and Dev execs, we’ve come up with a few options for where we could go, and we want directors to give input as to how best to fix these problems and have CSESoc run better than ever!

Recap

To recap, from the last patch notes (Patch Notes [2023.1] - Dev Exec reshuffling), we encountered a lot of problems trying to integrate Main and Dev together earlier in the year, which was done since we were all technically “one society”:

- Some Dev execs didn’t have enough time to worry about concerns with the rest of CSESoc, and vice-versa with the other non-dev execs to CSESoc Development, which gave execs extra stress (caring about the whole society) with no extra support.

- There were 60(!) directors altogether, which made things like director roadtrips/bondings difficult to organise.

- Whole-society bondings were logistically impossible, since there were about 300 people total.

- The two groups of Internals/Externals and Dev had little overlap besides exec-organised bonding events - furthermore, because Projects was traditionally fairly isolated from the rest of CSESoc, it would be a giant effort to integrate both groups, overshadowing any new initiatives that the exec wanted to run.

As a result of these problems, we have gone back to operating “like two societies” under the same banner of CSESoc, which is what the executive team from last year intended with the new vice-president roles.

During discussions between the Main and Dev exec about making Dev more autonomous again, we were also wondering whether the status quo (two societies internally, one CSESoc externally) is a good solution long-term.

Problems

Having Main and Dev operating as “two societies within one” presents a couple of issues:

  • Confusion at the executive level - if Main and Dev being two distinct entities is not expressed properly to next year’s exec, the problems we ran into while trying to integrate between the two societies might happen again, or at least next year’s exec will go into their new roles without knowing how difficult integrating Main and Dev would be.

  • Disconnect at the subcom/director level - because CSESoc is so big, integrating Main and Dev further would be a gargantuan task. However, not integrating creates a situation where members on either side of the society may never see CSESoc members from the “other side”, which is not ideal for subcom coming in expecting to be part of “one society”, and makes bondings awkward.

  • External confusion - because of CSESoc’s size and internally functioning as “two separate societies”, this can create a point of confusion for people outside of the society (for example, people emailing the wrong team about Projects, people contacting incorrect teams). This results in people getting information slower than expected (or not at all), which detracts from their society experience.

  • Elections - we believe that the best way for Dev to operate is to have a proper executive body - a lot of the problems we ran into as Dev exec this year was an imbalance of responsibilities amongst exec. However, if we are to operate as one society under Arc, elections for these exec would be difficult to pull off.

  • Bureaucracy - because Main and Dev share a lot of resources (e.g. social media, Arc communications, budget), Dev usually has to go through Main CSESoc teams before publishing things on social media, booking rooms through Arc etc.

While these are not insurmountable (i.e. it’s still completely possible for CSESoc to function), they do make the society experience more inconvenient than necessary, and it does introduce “messiness” to CSESoc as a whole. This messiness does detriment the executive experience, which makes running both societies more difficult as a result.

Options

We found that there were 3 options we could take:

 

Option 1: status quo

Option 2: changes to internal structure

Option 3: full Arc affiliation

 

Option 1: status quo

Option 2: changes to internal structure

Option 3: full Arc affiliation

Pros

  • Minimal effort for now

  • Retains CSESoc identity

  • Society is still workable, with quirks

  • Dev can negotiate internally for more society-like things (social media etc.) pending Arc approval

  • Some problems above could be resolved (some bureaucracy, exec-level confusion etc.)

  • Arc $$$ (grants upwards of $3000, $1 per event attendee)

  • Direct contact with Arc (grievances, room bookings, Arc Legal)

  • By necessity, all problems above are resolved

  • We can expand our reach to non-CSE students

Cons

  • Not sure if things like extra elections are allowed by Arc

  • Problems above still persist

  • Handover will have to involve more communication

  • Strain on Main exec (Arc room bookings, grievances)

  • Requires more work (establishing social media accounts, new Google Drive, new Confluence)

  • Requires negotiations with Arc, school of CSE, external sponsors to see what’s possible

  • Doesn’t solve problem of extra communication between Main and Dev (room bookings, grievances)

  • Requires even more work (new constitution, submitting proposals to Arc)

  • May require us dissociating our identity from CSESoc (this was a problem last year)

  • We may not get Arc affiliation

We also thought about integrating the “two societies” together more, but based on the points laid out in the recap we concluded that would be impossible.

If you want more information about some of these options, have a look at Relationship between CSESoc and Dev

From there, we want to get opinions from directors:

  • Which option do you believe is the best way forward?

  • Are there any other potential options that we missed?

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