toc/operations/toc-chair.md

TOC Chair

This document serves to provide the TOC Chair with details on their responsibilities, role, and expectations that are in addition to those of a TOC member.

Selecting the Chair

The TOC Chair is an member of the TOC that is chosen by each seated TOC to lead and presented the TOC in the execution of it's work.

Functions of the Chair

The Chair is expected to perform a variety of functions and can often be thought of as a Team Lead, as such their work relies on the input and support of the TOC to be successful. A list of known functions and their details is below:

• Facilitate Initiative Planning
• Coordinate TOC activities
• Ensure Liaisons are assigned and engaged for each TAG
• Coordinate overarching TAG activities
• Serve on the Governing Board in the TOC Seat and represent the TOC to the Governing Board
• Co-present CNCF technical strategy at Governing Board strategy sessions
• Support onboarding new TOC members as needed
• Ensure notes and actions are documented and issued for TOC meetings with follow-up
• Verify appropriate workload distribution among the TOC members
• Ensure TOC meetings have a facilitator and agenda
• Foster discussion - ask questions, even obvious ones to move the conversation forward or to closure.
• Protect TOC time - People like to sign the TOC up for a lot of things, you are responsible for ensuring we’re involved in the things we need to be and which ones are not on us
• Redirect work out of scope of the TOC to the appropriate group (Kubernetes Steering, Governing Board, Code of Conduct Committee, Legal Committee, etc.)
• Bring project and group conflicts that escalate to the TOC level to closure, either through delegation to TOC members and awareness or through direct resolution while keeping the TOC informed
• Meet regularly with CNCF Leadership, CNCF Staff Supporting the TOC, and other Foundations' Technical Leadership to coordinate cross-foundation opportunities and awareness
• Be available to field questions and concerns from community members and redirect as needed
• Coordinate TOC Keynotes at KubeCon + CloudNativeCon (KCCN)
• Participate in meetings, presentations, etc. as needed at KCCN

Governing Board Meetings

When a new TOC chair is selected, the following governing board meeting the chair provides a brief introduction about themselves, their vision and principles, and provides a "state of the TOC" address. The State of the TOC address identified curent activities, challenges, and work planned or unplanned. It may include a roadmap of what the next year of the TOC looks like.

At subsequent GB meetings, the Chair will provide the GB with a status update of the TOC's work. It is recommended these updates be information with links to where interested GB members may participate or engage.

Other duties as they occur

This is a short doc, while it does contain a fair amount of information on what goes into being the Chair, there is a lot more that is not documented here due to complexity, sensitivity, sporadic nature of the work, or the number of one-off unrelated things that pop-up time and time again. It is strongly recommended that if you are interested in serving as Chair, reach out to past Chairs and ask their experience. Each Chair's experience is very different, now two are alike. As the community grows and evolves, so too does the functions and responsibilities of the chair.