Website Functionality

This diagram shows the basic functionality of the Javul website.

The overall concept is similar to that of a project management software (see Wikipedia) which helps people organize their work however we want it to be open-source and offer monetary rewards to those who contribute and keep track of people's reputations.

Prototype Screenshots

• (Google drive) Home | Units | Objectives | Tasks

Units

Units are the building blocks of the Javul project. They are also another way of describing the project. Society can be divided into smaller functioning units where certain types of problems related to a specific area are handled by a specific group of people who are trusted to be the caretakers of that unit. To maintain accountability, the general public judges the performance of these experts and has power over who is in charge. This creation of a unit defines a necessary boundary and creates a space for people of similar interests to work together.

Units may have sub-units and adjacent units so they are all connected to each other. Units collaborate with each other where necessary.

Units can be formed where the primary focus is human welfare. An example is Kabul -> Healthcare. Kabul is a city in Afghanistan. This example only gives a general idea of how a unit may be formed and does not imply how it will actually be implemented.

Javul’s primary mission is to maintain the optimal functioning of units based on human-welfare. These units do not compete with other units. Units can also be formed on the basis of a personal, party, group or organizational identities to help improve their management, products or services or even their participation in human welfare oriented units. These units may be for commercial or non-commercial entities.

In summary, a unit:

• focuses on issues of a certain type
• makes it possible for subject-matter experts to work together on solving problems for that unit
• makes it possible units to work with other units.
• can have adjacent, parent or child relationships with other units.

Classification for Units: Units have to be categorized in some meaningful way. They can be classified on the basis of location and type. For example “Education” is a type that applies to all locations and “Afghanistan” is a specific location. Within Afghanistan, there will be states or national divisions. Within these divisions there will be counties and cities. All of these can have their own units and the main “Education” unit for Afghanistan will be the parental units for all Education related units within Afghanistan. Different locations have different scenarios for the same type of units and so have to be dealt with individually. Sometimes a certain type of Unit may apply worldwide. “Worldwide” units have sub-units that are location-specific. So this means that the Worldwide Education unit is the parent unit for all location specific Education units. Parent units may address Objectives which apply to all or most sub-units.

Units are a powerful tool. The functioning of any entity, whether its a country or a departmental store can be managed using units. They can be created for a country and in that way they can work as an alternate government for that country, where there are sub-units of all kinds. Or they can be made for a local hospital and manage its functioning.

Donations go to Units where they can be used to compensate people who contribute the most. Every Unit home page can have a donate button.

Alternative terms: Project, Group

Objectives

Objectives are top-level goals in a Unit and are a way to group related tasks together. For example the software Atlassian uses the term 'Epic' to describe larger deliverables Altassian.com - Issue Types:

In agile development, epics usually represent a significant deliverable, such as a new feature or experience in the software your team develops.

Without an 'Objective' type of project management component, it would be difficult to organize tasks and track progress on larger goals.

Setting of Objectives could be done according to the SMART criteria

Initially in addition to an Objective, two terms Ideas and Problems were defined. An Idea was just that - an idea which someone had but there may not be a defined objective for it or a problem associated with it. A Problem was focused on an existing issue or problem. It was thought that having these two additional terms would complicate things when we are looking at big problems that were connected to other problems, ideas or objectives. Using one terms simplifies things. Ideas eventually have to turn into Objectives and Problems usually always have an objective or get an Objective associated with during the course of solving the problem. Having one term also simplifies the implementation in the beginning.

For personal Units (a low-priority feature to be implemented later), Objectives can also be managed for a person for certain goals that they want to achieve. They can be private or be shared with counselors or the public so others can help in setting new objectives or give feedback.

Alternative terms: Goals, Targets, Milestones

Ideas

People can create and discuss new ideas relating to the Unit

Issues

People can report problems or issues related to the Unit

Tasks

A task is a unit of work. Although tasks are considered to be indivisible units of work, tasks can be composed of other tasks. To each there should exist at least one procedural description; a thorough explanation of the necessary actions that need to be executed in order to complete the task. Defining checkpoints and ways to evaluate the correct execution of a task is important for accountability.

Completion

Tasks can and should be graded. As an example with three different values: could be better, acceptable (100%), exceptional (110%). This information can be used to define a reputation metric.

Complexity

A complex task can be a task composed of many sub-tasks or it can be a procedure that requires highly skilled performers.

Compensation

The correct execution of a task can be compensated monetarily, with an increase of reputation or with any other mechanism.

Related concepts: work, procedure, job, accountability

Treasury

Every Unit has a treasury or source of funds that can be used by people for re-deeming activity points.

Roles

Tasks are meant to be open and can be completed by anyone. However there might be some people who are assigned on-going recurring and therefore might have defined 'Roles' relevant to the kinds of tasks they're working on.

Work Flow

People can directly create new Objectives. They can also discuss anything in the forum first to see what people think, and then use the project to create an Objective when they are more sure of what needs to be done. A forum provides a discussion ability where people can freely talk about any topic.

Creating a well-planned Objective can give it a nice start, although the project provides people the ability to collaborate and improve an existing Objective. These items can be interlinked to each other as a parent, child or adjacent member so a network of problems is created and can be browsed. Strategies for Objectives can be created. They contain assignable steps for people who are assigned to do these steps.

Other software on the website: A wiki is available people to collaborate on creating content. Content can be created for the specific Unit to create pages such as About or other documentation.

General Help, About or FAQ pages about the project can also be managed which provide documentation about the project. In the future we could think of creating options so people can video conference, text or voice chat for discussions. We could use services from external websites such as Google hangouts but it would be integrated with the Javul website in a way to make things convenient.

Differences between the old and new version of the website

Feature	Description	Reason for adding
New component 'Ideas'	New ideas can help create tasks for additional features	Previously we just had issues which are understood to be dealing with existing problems, not new ideas/proposals which are also an important reason for improvement
Moved United related links	Moving Unit-related links to a row at the top	Have more space for the main core content of a Unit
New feature 'Active Users'	Active Users (quantity) are shown (logged in is counted as well) and the usernames. These statistics are then used for decision making in the Unit e.g. Task approval	To keep track of active users to help with decision making and also showing how active a Unit is.
Approval mechanism for Tasks	Previously a task was auto-approved after 7 days if all editors editing it had not approved it. Now an Admin or a user with the 'Task Management' right can approve it. If there's only one or two active users in that task, they can also approve it (see 'Active Users' for detail).	Faster 'approval' process based on Active Users
Vote weight	Votes of subject-matter experts/active/regular contributors should be more than those of new users
Tasks	Old website: Issues have their own Resolution field and work done for resolving them is not translated into a Task. New website: Should the work for implementing Ideas and Resolving Issues (and completing Objectives) all be directed to the Task management system?
Example	Example	Example
Example	Example	Example
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Differentiation between Objectives, Issues, Ideas and Tasks

Ideas are for brainstorming and at that time people aren't thinking about the specifics of the task(s) needed to implement an idea. Its a different kind of mental activity.

Similarly for Issues we're looking at looking at the Issue in detail, root cause.

Converting something into a Task, task bidding, checking what skills are needed to complete the task, task completion and evaluation - those are different stages of the work flow and need a different approach. This is why we need a dedicated task interface just like how Upwork has (which is like Task management but not issue reporting or Idea management)

Improving Government and Leadership

The core Unit can also be used for a city, with tags to identify different types of tasks, objectives, issues and ideas. This lets new leaders focus on all the issues for a City in one place and develop their leadership profiles. There's more functionality needed for government specific units (e.g. creating/maintaining laws) which will be developed later.

Current Issues

• Do we need a Decision object? We need to recognize decisions made supported by science, data and research
• ...

Site Administration

These can be sections in the Javul.org forum

• General Discussion (website functionality and system improvements)
• Conflict Resolution (later)
• Database maintenance for Skills, Areas of Interest, Location
• Report an Issue
• Open Community Business Incubator (for advice and suggestions)

Links

• Original Job description for Javul.org

This is to show that project management has similar ways of dividing up a project's tasks to manage its work:

• JIRA. According to Altassian, "Issues are the building blocks" of their project management software. more info
• Stories, Epics, Themes and Initiatives for Product Managers - "Stories, epics, themes and initiatives are the building blocks of great agile product management." (Altassian also talks about these here)
• 20 views of the GoodDay software to show project management views of different types
• Comparison of issue-tracking systems
• Task Management (Wikipedia)