Vision

Motivation: Why Portal?

Providing social welfare services by connecting Surtee Gujrati Muslim community members in Pakistan and the rest of the world. 

Why is this Documentation Important?

• To bring Office Bearers and Community on the same-page about the initiative of Community Portal 

• To help Office Bearers on various constitutional and managerial challenges to be faced for the success of the initiative

• To provide a road-map to Community members directly and indirectly working on the initiative  

• To respond to the questions that would keep on raising e.g:

  • What is progress on action items? 

  • How many points have been discussed so far? 

  • Who is in which role working on what? 

  • What are the priorities? 

  • Challenges, hurdles, bottlenecks, etc.? 

• To  organise team as early as possible instead of random acts of kindness

• To save redundant efforts as no visible progress other than discussions would cause demotivation leading to negative affect on the whole initiative.

Challenges

Challenges may be categorised and kind of sandwiched as:

1. Leadership for Vision

Community welfare services to be offered in short/medium/longer terms, priorities, projects/apps. etc.

2. Technical

Portal Service/Solution Architecture, Design/Development, Implementation, Tutorial/Training documentation manuals/audios/videos, Maintenance, Enhancements, etc.

3. Governance

Policies, Rules, Procedures, Transparency, Visibility/Access Permissions, etc.

4. Financial

Budget, Allocation, Disbursement, Audit, etc.

5. Operational

Day-to-Day operations, monitoring, troubleshooting, feedback, etc.

6. Leadership for Sustainability

Role in facing all above (1 to 5) challenges, Bring stakeholders particularly Anjuman Managers onboard for clearing obstacles, etc.

Vision into Action

Projects

A project is a primary method for translating Vision into reality because it helps define scope of services, objectives, resources, tasks, cost estimate, and timeline and ultimately convert into agreement between all stakeholders.

Teams & Roles

Community Office Bearers are responsible for management of all social welfare services to the community.

The Steering Team is responsible to address in particular Leadership, Governance and Financial challenges and other challenges in general. They are to ensure a project meets the expectations of the community and acts as a bridging team between other teams.

Consultants Team is responsible to address Technical challenges based on experience of professions/field of expertise (e.g. IT, Engineering, Finance, etc.). The team shall provide expert advice to other teams and to provide guidance during the process of delivering services.

Project Team/Technical Team is responsible to address technical challenges starting from idea to delivery and to keep operations away from technical problems.

Project Team/Operational Team is responsible for day-to-day operational challenges while offering services through the portal to the community.

Team Member Mode of Working (Volunteer/Paid) 

Team members shall express their intent whether they would offer their service voluntarily or would expect compensation for their time and efforts.

Team Structure & Functions

Members of each team may select Team Lead acting as in-charge of the team affairs.

Team Lead may:

• plan action items according the roles/responsibilities of the team

• form team to work the plan

• select and follow from different methodologies (e.g. Agile/Scrum, Kanban, Waterfall, etc.) deems more appropriate 

• distribute the action items among team members

• keep track of progress on action items

• coordinate and organise meeting with other team for coordinate progress

Team Member may:

• work the assigned action items by the team lead

• assist team lead and and other team members for overall progress of the team

Pool of Contributors

Leadership: Ilyas Qazi, Nasir Behlim, Mr. Iqbal Suleman Desai, Saleem Sajee

Consultants: Ashraf Bana, Imran Patel

Services Development & Operations: Bilal Yaqoob Dasoo, Ehtesham Ul Haq Rangoonwala, Muhammad Junaid Kotwal, Sufyan Muhammad Morvania, Omer Younus Darsot, Sohail Makrod, Yahya Patel, Yousuf Patel, Asif Sehri and more to be added.

Budget

A project requires human and material resources, which needs to be provided by estimating and allocating a financial budget. 

Approval

A project plan with scope, resource, time and cost estimates is presented to relevant Office Bearers for approval.

Execution & Monitoring

The Steering Committee ensures smooth execution of the project by monitoring progress according to the project plan.

Feedback

Feedback is necessary to keep the project on track and/or introduce any changes where required while removing obstacles if any. Seeking and providing feedback is one of the key responsibilities of the Steering Committee.

Policy Guidelines

Governance

• Digital Services shall be developed and operationalized by taking respective Office Bearer on-board

• Office Bearer, once on-board for digital services, shall act as enabler of the service offering with full ownership and make provision for necessary structural (office bearer roles & responsibilities), financial, legal and operational support

Financial

• Funds for the service offerings may be generated through new and creative sources of funding

• Complete transparency shall be maintained in collection, maintenance, and utilisation of funds

Technical

• Digital Service offerings shall be architected including but not limited to the qualities: Cost Efficiency, Scalability, Reliability, Performance, Security, and Maintainability

• Source code of the software developed for the community service offering shall remain under the ownership of Community and it's Office Bearers 

Operations

• Digital Services shall be operationalized by clear identification and assignment of roles, responsibilities and accountabilities of required Human Resource (HR) 

Sustainability

• Services offering through portal shall be designed on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) model in order to ensure that it shall be institutionalised, shall be transformed into asset for the community and shall be taken to last for the generations to come rather than remain dependent on a few members who took the present initiative

Phase I: Action Plan

This is an outline of an action plan with some organisation (roles/responsibilities) to take things forward in Phase I.

1. Leadership: Form and get approval for the Steering Team

2. Leadership: Form and get approval if necessary for the Consultants Team and Contributors

3. Steering Team, Consultants Team and Contributors: Form a Project Team that would work on a first project

4. Steering Team, Consultants Team and Project Team: Select set of initial services to be provided through the first project

5. Project Team and Consultants: Produce Project Plan describing scope, time and cost estimates and deliverables

6. Leadership and Steering Team: Ensure availability of financial and related support to the Project Team

7. Project Team: Produce the Project deliverables according to the Project Plan

8. Steering Team and Consultants: Monitor the progress and give feedback to keep the Project on track

9. Leadership, Steering Team and Consultants: Review cost/benefits of the project to plan future course of actions

This action plan is subject to revisions until finalised. Once finalised, sticking to the plan would increase the chance of success.

More phases shall be introduced as and when deemed necessary.

Teams

Office Bearers

Mr. Ayub Ebrahim Desai (President)

Mr. Ebrahim Ismail Daya (Chairman)

Mr. Firoz Ayub Patel (Vice Chairman)

Mr. Siddiq Qasim Patel (Honorary General Secretary)

Mr. Iqbal Suleman Desai (Honorary Joint Secretary)

Mr. Ebrahim Suleman Patel (Honorary Treasurer) 

Steering Team

Team Lead: Ilyas Qazi

Members: Nasir Behlim, Omer Younus Darsot, Mr. Iqbal Suleman Desai, Saleem Sajee more to be added by the Team Lead.

Consultants Team

Team Lead: Ashraf Bana

Members: Imran Patel, and more to be added by the Team Lead.

Project 1st Team

Team Lead: Omer Younus Darsot

Members: Bilal Yaqoob Dasoo, Junaid Kotwal, Sohail Makrod, and more to be added by the Team Lead.