In your opinion what is the best possible officer team a union can have? I'm not talking about the usual "oh have a team where everyone posts, are active, blah blah blah" type discussion, that doesn't provide any feedback for other leaders who might read this thread. Instead, I want to know what are your thoughts on the best possible user combinations to make an effective officer team. Contrary to popular belief of many people, unions are all about strategy and one such strategy is having an effective officer combination where every officer you have supplements the other officers' skills. Obviously there are many different combinations which work differently depending on the type of union however in my opinion the best possible officer team consists of just 4 officers: a general, poster, designer, and lurker type officer. For an off-topic union, this is THE best combination out there if you ask me. To any off-topic unions who may read this: having this combination works amazing since for the most part your main focus will be on the board and less on news. The combination I've mentioned will have each officer supplement the other three. The general type officers does a bit of everything, the poster does exactly what you'd assume, the designer would be the union's designer, and the lurker would be the closest thing to the police in your union locking up threads and such. What's your own officer teams that you've had and for what type of union is it specialized towards?
What I would say is essentially in this thread, which was essentially the exact same thread in a different union. To expand on it, I believe that the hardest part of having a proper Officer team is having the right people active in your union in the first place to promote. I'm in a bit of a strange situation in my current union since the majority of the active posters are ones with low post counts who haven't had previous experience leading a union, so I'm not willing to open up an Officer application. When I first set up the revival to my union I had set up an union jobs system to keep tabs on how many Officers I required based on the needs of the union. The thread for that is here. Originally I had six people chosen, and with my math was correct that would fill up all of the jobs and would still allow me to expand the list if and when I saw fit. However, my current issue is that a couple of the Officers I had chose only made a couple of posts on the board, and didn't perform their duty at all, so that left me with having to demote them and leave multiple jobs unfilled, and as a result can't bring the features that I want to bring since it's too much of a burden to place on only a three Officer team.
I'm in a bit of a strange situation in my current union since the majority of the active posters are ones with low post counts who haven't had previous experience leading a union, so I'm not willing to open up an Officer application.mudkip
Having no previous experience doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't make decent officers. ;) We all were in the situation you just mentioned at one point when we were newer in Gamespot, you have to learn to be willing to take risks at time and hand out to someone who you think could have the potential to become good. Also, just a small tip: targeting people who aren't officers in many places can be beneficial since that means they will end up being more dedicated to your own union more frequently than not. As for the union jobs, I've never been extremely strict on that. One thing I enjoy doing is working behind the scenes with my officer team and instead of putting out in the open jobs, tasks, ideas, etc. which I'd like to get accomplished I prefer doing that all through PM so others can't read it. This is more of a personal opinion, however I've always believed that it's better not to let the public be able to read what you may be planning. If you're having difficulty with your officers for example, it becomes obvious if it's displayed on a thread, while if you're doing all the talk through PM then no one knows. If there's ever any problems going on within your officer team, you don't want people knowing about it since it can be perceived as you not knowing how to handle your union.
I have tried assigning jobs to Officers but I find that never really works out very well so I let them do their own thing really. I suppose General Officers and officers that create new threads are most important. A graphic designer would be good also but I tend to do the designing at my unions so it is kind of irrelevant.
Creating an officer team based on tasks ultimately will create a high rate of turnover. You can't just promote users who are essentially good friends, or people sweep all the time. You can be a great member, who is uninterested with having responsibilities. Alternatively, you could preform your task well, but become too busy to carry out strict weekly assignments. There is a drawback to any system.
One thing, when I mention what people do I'm strictly discussing normal habits of the person without meaning that it's that officer's job. The four that I mentioned are just people who normally fit into those roles without being ordered to do anything. Tasks are important and all, however having officers whose normal personalities fit these more broad skills naturally is much more important.
[quote="mudkip"]I'm in a bit of a strange situation in my current union since the majority of the active posters are ones with low post counts who haven't had previous experience leading a union, so I'm not willing to open up an Officer application.julian_jr
Having no previous experience doesn't necessarily mean they wouldn't make decent officers. ;) We all were in the situation you just mentioned at one point when we were newer in Gamespot, you have to learn to be willing to take risks at time and hand out to someone who you think could have the potential to become good. Also, just a small tip: targeting people who aren't officers in many places can be beneficial since that means they will end up being more dedicated to your own union more frequently than not. As for the union jobs, I've never been extremely strict on that. One thing I enjoy doing is working behind the scenes with my officer team and instead of putting out in the open jobs, tasks, ideas, etc. which I'd like to get accomplished I prefer doing that all through PM so others can't read it. This is more of a personal opinion, however I've always believed that it's better not to let the public be able to read what you may be planning. If you're having difficulty with your officers for example, it becomes obvious if it's displayed on a thread, while if you're doing all the talk through PM then no one knows. If there's ever any problems going on within your officer team, you don't want people knowing about it since it can be perceived as you not knowing how to handle your union.I agree with Julian on this, speaking of which I think you should see if Naveen is interested
I believe your officers shouldn't be your best friends, but friends with each other. The number 1 rule is to have all of your officers on the same page and make sure they're getting along.
I believe the number of officers you have actually depends on the scale of the union. I let my officers do what they want, and we all seem to get together. Sid does most of the designing, Stephen covers reviews and Game of the Month. Each officer dedicates something to the union and keeps it running.
Officers do need to get along, and I dont think officer amount is entirely based on scale, although a 40 man union shouldnt have a full officer squad and a 1000 man union thats very active have 2. You need enough to have someone doing each important job and have one or two as good backups. I think 4-6 is good for most active unions.
Officers do need to get along, and I dont think officer amount is entirely based on scale, although a 40 man union shouldnt have a full officer squad and a 1000 man union thats very active have 2. You need enough to have someone doing each important job and have one or two as good backups. I think 4-6 is good for most active unions.Giratina617
My union has about 260 members so I like to keep seven officers. But we only have six at the moment since I'm trying to decide who I want to promote for our 2 year anniversary. And I believe it's important that they get along. Everyone in my union work together. Stephen always manages to post Game of the Month on the first day of the month. Sid is a skillful designer and is our lead designer. Diego, Doc, and Jak post around in the forums and 007 is co-officer. And with us all working together in a group, we don't even have to talk about things we have to do, we just do them.
It strengthens teamwork and dedication. And I can agree with it not being entirely based on scale. But if you have a union with 20 members you don't need five officers. You need three or four. And when you are running a massive union with about 500 people in it I would say ten officers. However, I would never go over the ten mark so nobody gets confused.
I believe 6 officers is a good team though if you have the right people.
I think the cap only applies to when you are initially inviting people to found a union. After the union is formed, then you can have more Officers than you'll ever need. :P
I think the cap only applies to when you are initially inviting people to found a union. After the union is formed, then you can have more Officers than you'll ever need. :PMudkipMaster30
I am usually pretty solitary when it comes to officer teams. Most of the time, I'll just promote those who are active within the union and let them play with their powers when required. Back then, I rarely ever tried all that hard to make a full fledged team out of my officers because it was difficult to have everyone participate while finding roles for them.
My perfect officer team would be built out of people I am familiar with who also have a passion for the unions subject. I've always been interested in becoming good friends with my team mates and discussing future plans for the union with them, though it rarely turns out that way.
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