Recommendations for Organization Structure for the Accessibility Forum (AF)

The Organizational Structure Tiger Team is presenting some recommendations about the organizational structure for the Accessibility Forum for your consideration.  At the May Accessibility Forum meeting the membership launched this team with the goal of defining organizational structure alternatives for the Accessibility Forum. The Organizational Structure Team consisted of Jim House (TDI), June Perritt (IBM), David Poehlman (AFB), Joy Relton (Unisys), Gregg Vanderheiden (Trace), and Mark Urban. Supported by Accessibility Forum staff, this team has identified organizational requirements and three alternative organizational structures. This email documents those requirements and alternative structures and is designed as a ballot for the Forum membership to select one of the alternative organizational structures. 

Purpose of Organizational Structure: The team defined five areas that a Forum organizational structure should address, including: 

1. Policy and strategic direction.
2. Ongoing management of Forum work efforts.
3. Forum work efforts.
4. Insight from and feedback from focused stakeholder groups.
5. Ability of stakeholder groups to monitor the various processes/activities of the Forum on a timely basis and participate as desired.

Structural Requirements

Policy and Strategic Leadership. 

Such leadership should be provided by a group of representatives of stakeholder groups. Membership would be small enough to facilitate meetings and discussions but large enough to effectively address both centrist and extreme views. Their purpose would be to identify and recommend policies and strategies that are likely to attain consensus among the full Forum membership so that:

• Forum Activities work toward broad acceptance.
• A balance is reached among all stakeholder perspectives. 
• Recommended resolutions to issues affecting Forum work efforts are developed with the goal of maximizing overall impact, effectiveness, and progress.
•  Appropriate liaisons or relationships with other non-Forum activities are identified.
• The overall Project portfolio is reviewed so that projects are identified and prioritized in the context of consistency with the Accessibility Forum mission.
• Recommendations are made for the formation of other Forum committees as required.
• Management or operation items are posted to the Forum via the Forum listserv for discussion and consensus (consensus is defined as the lack of dissent after 7 days). Consensus reached in this fashion would be binding until the next meeting at which time it could be raised if someone has an objection.

Project Management. 

While GSA and contracted support will facilitate project management, Forum participant efforts in project management will be crucial. The project management responsibilities would be to:

• Manage individual projects throughout the project’s life cycle to assure that: 
• The process and approach is sound, fair, and workable; 

• Project milestones are met in a timely fashion and that results are sufficient quality;
• Results are incrementally reviewed by the full Forum membership; and, 
• Results are published to other interested parties as appropriate.
• Assure that project staffing is active and effective with coverage for all stakeholders.
• Support project schedule development. 
• Support coordination across projects to identify overlaps and ensure consistency in format, methodology, results, and stakeholder communication.
• Provide opportunities for vocalization of issues and concerns.
• Resolve issues by agreement or submit them to strategic leadership for recommendations.

Project team responsibilities are to:

• Complete a project within the project scope.
• Provide regular feedback to project management and overall Forum membership. 
• Take advantage of existing guidelines, efforts, products, and mechanisms to complete their project wherever feasible and appropriate.
• Groups with a shared perspective (hereafter referred to as “Affinity Groups”). Affinity Groups would be formed voluntarily by members (with staff support provided) for working as such a group at Forum meetings, through listservs, and through teleconferences.
• Example Affinity Groups might include (but not be limited to): 

1. AT industry groups (perhaps by area of focus such as support for special visual, hearing, or mobility needs);
2. EIT industry groups (perhaps by industry specialty such as computer hardware, telecommunications, mainstream software, etc.); and, 
3. Special interest groups around a particular area of disability (e.g., sight, hearing/speech, mobility impairment, etc.) 
4. Activities an Affinity Group might include (but not be limited to):
5. Help to assure that their constituency reviews and provides feedback on issues. 
   
6. Allow individuals with shared perspectives to communicate with each other to gain broader insight on common issues, concerns and opportunities. 
7. Enhance communication within each stakeholder community to improve quality and acceptance of the final Forum products.

• Other considerations for Affinity Groups:

1. The Forum staff will facilitate or attend such efforts. 
2. Membership in an affinity group should be controllable by its membership as opposed to membership in all other parts of the Forum, which should be as open as possible.

General Discussion Point - Academia was not mentioned in the mission statement, and that is something that should be addressed by the Forum as recommended by the Tiger Team.

Organizational Approach 

Below are three examples of organizational structures. They differ in the way in which some of the entities are created, and there are subtle differences in the way these entities function. To that end, a table of comparison is placed at the end of the document to assist persons in discerning these differences.

Example 1 

One organizational approach includes a Strategic Leadership Council, a Project Leadership Management Council, Project Teams, and Affinity Groups.

1. Strategic leadership would be provided by a Strategic Leadership Council with membership from each stakeholder constituency (e.g., 4 to 6 E&IT industry representatives, 3 to 4 AT industry representatives, 3 to 4 user advocacy representatives, 3 to 5 government representatives, and 2 to 3 other representatives). The responsibilities would be to develop strategy and policy recommendations that would presented to the Forum Membership for consideration and approval.
2. The Project Leadership Management Council would have representatives from stakeholder constituencies. The Project Leadership Management Council would have responsibility for overseeing all active projects and providing technical management. Their goal would be to attain consensus on resolutions to project issues or refer for resolution if consensus was not attained. For example, if a project issue is considered to be a strategic issue, referral would be to Strategic Council; if not a strategic issue, referral would be directly to the Forum membership).
3. Project Teams would be comprised of team members from the Forum and a Forum staff member to serve as project facilitator. The Project Leadership Management Council would coordinate the team membership. Every effort will be made to represent the relevant stakeholders. Teams will select a leader by consensus. Note that teams could involve external resources at their discretion. If either the project facilitator or the selected project leader deem appropriate, they may refer issues to the Project Leadership Management Council after notifying the team.
4. Support will be provided for Affinity Groups. Affinity Groups could be established whenever people express an interest. Affinity groups might be formed, for example, on the basis of an industry, user issues, or technology interest. Membership in an affinity group would be controlled by the membership of that Affinity Group. All Affinity Groups will select a contact person. The staff will maintain membership lists for each Affinity Group and support meetings and virtual meetings as appropriate.
   Example 2  Same as Example 1 except:

 The Project Leadership Management Council would be comprised of the “leaders of the individual active projects” rather than “representatives from stakeholder constituencies”. 

(NOTE: Representation of stakeholder constituencies would only happen in the Project Management Leadership Council if the leaders of the individual projects happened to collectively represent the stakeholder constituencies). 

Example 3
Same as Example 1 except:

Combine the Strategic Leadership Council and Project Leadership Management Council into a single council that would carry out the functions described under the two councils. 
Background

GSA, with contracted assistance, is taking the initial steps to facilitate Forum establishment with the goal of transitioning the effort to stakeholder leadership. The GSA role is to assure a level playing field for all participants, and to provide the contracted assistance to facilitate Forum efforts, including an infrastructure to support distributed collaboration through virtual meetings and electronic communication. 
The Accessibility Forum Membership is initially a wide range of invited people representing key interest groups - E&IT and AT industry, user advocacy groups, and government. It is because of the size and diversity of that membership, which may grow to include other interested parties, that organizational structure is an important item to address. While it is envisioned that the Forum will meet two (2) to three (3) times a year, Forum efforts will continue throughout the year through specialized face-to-face and distributed activities facilitated by collaboration tools.