As of January 5th, our internal review of roles / responsibilities has been completed. At that same time letters were sent to all current Core Team Members and Project Leads containing either invitations to accept roles for 2007 or a request for voluntary retirement. Many responses have been received, but we won't be making any public announcements until we have been able to work things through with everyone. The request to "retire voluntarily" is a reflection of the desire on our part to allow folks to make this transition in a way which serves them positively and respectfully.
The DotNetNuke team had never previously instituted a "timeframe of service" for anyone... so our only options were to ask for voluntary retirement or to "let go". As you would imagine, our preference was (and is) that anyone being asked to retire have the courtesy of a choice extended to them. Beginning in 2007, we are associating a 1 year "term of service" for every role which should help make future transitions easier. We're promoting a few Project Leads in this round who have been serving well and patiently and we are quite honored to finally have them aboard the team! And we're committing to taking a look at things twice a year, going forward, to see if other promotions or project corrections are in order.
Indeed, there are very gracious examples of folks who are retiring well (and with exciting personal ventures)! There are also some that are not so gracious. And although this is unfortunate, it is not entirely unexpected. We are sympathetic to the emotional responses that change sometimes evokes. But the reality is that it is not in the best interests of users of the DotNetNuke platform, nor respectful of the rest of the DotNetNuke team, to manipulate the structure of an organization to suit those responses.
There are MANY participants in the DotNetNuke community who add value in many ways. And there are many measures of "value", many views of what value actually is (different stakeholders perceive value differently). Similarly, not all of those measures are highly visible. Not all of those measures (particularly qualitative ones) are suitable for public conversation. It is unlikely that even those of us who perform well in work, home or hobby roles would like to have our "opportunities for improvement" aired publicly in the name of "transparency"? The simple truth is that when there is no responsibility, there is no role.
This is the difference between team membership and "award". We must distinguish between contributions which require privileged access to resources and channels from those that do not. Additionally we must distinguish between periodic contributions and commitment to regular, ongoing responsibility according to the needs of the project. It is the needs of the project that dictate these roles / responsibilities. Further, it is the shared commitment to those responsibilities that earn the respect and cooperation of your teammates.
We look forward to 2007 and a year of increasing recognition for all contributions, great and small. And we hope you will soon join us in welcoming a renewed team to carry us through the year, and wishing those retiring much success and thanks for their service.